


Won't You Tell Me What You're Thinking Of?

by rickyisms



Series: Woodhill Rugby [2]
Category: Handsome Devil (2016)
Genre: Conor Masters is very important to me, Domnhall Flannery, M/M, Old Conor and Ned and their friends, Olivia Hines, The Olympics!, explicit for sex scenes but nothing too raunchy, it's angst at first, read that for this to make a lot of sense, sequel to a previous fic, they go there!
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-02
Updated: 2020-03-09
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:53:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 30,719
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22078015
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rickyisms/pseuds/rickyisms
Summary: Conor Masters is an Olympian but he's retired now. Life is different, slower, less exciting. When an old friend gives him the chance to make rugby mean something again, he takes it.
Relationships: Conor Masters/Ned Roche, Conor Masters/OMC, past Conor Masters/Ned Roche, past Ned Roche/OFC
Series: Woodhill Rugby [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1589215
Comments: 30
Kudos: 87





	1. First One in and Last One Out

**Author's Note:**

> I started writing the epilogue and it was like 10 000 words so here.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Conor is 28. Conor has a great job. Conor's doing what's right. Conor's trying to convince himself he's happy.

Conor’s standing in the kitchen, the striped socks on his feet are fuzzy and warm, a birthday gift that have finally come in handy now that the cold weather has come. The sleeves of his grey knit sweater are rolled up to his elbows as he flies around the kitchen. The sink is filled with dishwater and he’s lit a candle. It smells like vanilla and cedar and it reminds Conor of a simpler time when Ned used vanilla hand cream and they fell asleep under the trees.

The house is quiet, save for the occasional gust of wind that rocks the foundation. He can’t think of any music to listen to, so he’s content to the sounds of the world. He scrubs the plates, there’s a piece of tomato sauce glued to one of the plates and when he finally peels it off, he’s hit with a wave of satisfaction. 

The house is small, it’s old and out of the way. It’s not particularly close to anything or anyone, but he’s 28 now, it’s nice to be out of the way sometimes. He knows that no one’s coming home and that’s nice. That’s what he tells himself. He does his own dishes, there are no clothes that aren’t his on the floor to pick up and throw in a laundry hamper. He has an office, and a bedroom that’s entirely his. He has friends that he calls when he wants to go out, and sometimes he still goes out on his own, but it’s not like it used to be, it’s not a punishment anymore. 

He opens the takeout container he picked up on his way home from work and sits at the kitchen table. He flips through a couple of his papers, but he tries not to think too hard about work in the evening anymore. A colleague, a friend, told him she was worried the only thing he has to look forward to was working and that that wasn’t great. 

So Conor turns of his laptop at 7 o’clock and leaves his papers at the kitchen table. At night, he’ll watch something on TV, or a film, there’s always a football match on so he’s started getting into that. Then he wakes up. Old habits die hard so no matter how cold it is, he pulls himself from his bed and gets dressed for a run. This morning, it’s not too bad. It’s biting and windy but at least the snow and the ice have gone. No one else is awake when he starts, but by the time he’s returning home, his neighbours have started to stir. His next door neighbour is an older woman, she drops off home cooked dinners for Conor sometimes and in return Conor shovels her driveway and cuts her grass. It’s a family neighbourhood, and Conor never thought seeing families every day would make him feel hollow, but it does. There’s a little boy teasing his sister as they get ready for school. A dad walks the dog while his wife pushes a baby around in a buggy. He just smiles at them. Everybody in the neighbourhood knows who Conor Masters is. It used to be for rugby, but now he’s just the lonely bachelor who lives across the street. 

He drives now, never thought he’d do that so regularly. A younger Conor didn’t see the point when everywhere he needed to go, he could take the train. But the suburbs are different, and he can afford the petrol, so he does. 

It’s a 20 minute drive to work, so he listens to the radio. He likes talk radio now, listens to the breakfast shows where they talk about politics and celebrities and sports. And he wears a tie, every day. There’s no uniform policy, but business casual means that he buys 6 pairs of the same slacks and 7 dress shirts in different shades of white, black, and blue. 

Conor waves to the secretary on they way into the office. He tries to be the first one in, but she always beats him. Refuses to leave until he’s packed up for the night.

He expects another day of answering phone calls, e-mails, reading scouting reports and watching film, but when he opens his office door, there’s a familiar face on his sofa. 

“Olivia,” he says in surprise. 

“Hello, Conor,” she smirks. 

“Can I help you?”

She nods. 

“Season’s over for me.”

“Has been for a while. Can’t play on ice.”

“Boy I wish I could. I was considering taking up hockey, maybe spending the off-season in Canada but I never learned how to skate.”

Of course Olivia says that, she’s still young enough that she doesn’t wake up stiff, with muscles made of lead. Then again, Olivia’s a better athlete than anyone Conor’s ever met. 

“Wouldn’t surprise me if you learned.”

Olivia starts pacing slowly around his office. He doesn’t like to keep too many things on the wall. His desk is almost entirely bare, he doesn’t have a lot of knick knacks or memorabilia. All the awards he’s won, have gone to his mother, to keep in the trophy case at home, he makes on exception. 

Some people say that you can’t win a silver medal. Not for a team sport. You’re given a silver medal. You earn a silver medal. You lose the gold medal game, and they give you a silver medal. But you win a bronze medal. Conor won his bronze medal. He remembers the game, it wasn’t particularly close. The Irish National team had secured the win by the end of the first half. But they had to keep going, Conor knew they had to keep going, so he shouted it and no one heard him, and then the captain shouted it, and everyone heard him. The captain, a young scrum-half, named Domnhall Flannery, known for his ability to change positions in the offseason and come back stronger. He’d been an out-half, a fullback, name a position on the field and he could play it. Everybody loved the kid, he was young, a hot shot, but kind. Conor didn’t tell anyone that they knew each other but it got out into the press. If Woodhill wasn’t already a rugby school, it would be once every parent in Ireland found out that Conor Masters and Domnhall Flannery had played there together. 

Olivia runs her fingers over the medal. It’s always heavier than people expect. It feels like a country hanging from your shoulders. 

“It’d be cool to have one of these.”

Conor shrugs. 

“You’ll skip bronze and go straight for gold.”

Olivia shakes her head, “Don’t care about the colour.”

“Is a world championship not enough for you.”

“Wanna do it at home.”

Conor smiles, nothing was ever enough for her. When she was 18, she decided to go to uni in England, and since her biological mum had been English, she qualified for team GB They won when Olivia was still in her second year of uni, and then another world championship when she was in her third, they lost to New Zealand the year she graduated. She was on the Olympic team the same year Conor won his medal, but as an alternate, she was too young, couldn’t crack the smaller roster. 

“That’s why I’m here,” she says. 

“To steal my medal?”

“To offer you a job.”

Conor’s ears perk up. He loves his job. He’s a scout. He spends hours watching game tape, thinking about players, but he spends more time in an office than he ever wanted to. 

“I want to come home, and I want to build something here,” she says. 

“That’s a risk.”

“Of course it is.”

“Are you sure.”

“I don’t want your money. I just want your help. We both have name recognition now. I’ve been talking with coaches, with the managers. The women have  _ never  _ qualified. You helped the men qualify.”

Conor sighs, she’s an adult, with a degree, and a life and bills to pay. But she’s still the stubborn kid with big dreams that Victor introduced him to when he was 17 and she was 14. 

“You know that means you can’t play for GB, right?”

Olivia nods, “I want to play here.”

He takes a deep breath. 

“They have the funding.”

He shakes his head, “Not worried about money. Just… did you talk to Dom?”

Conor hates how bad he is at keeping up with his friends but Liv and Dom were inseparable all those years ago. 

She nods, “He says he can help but y’know… he’s got a team.”

People like to skirt around it with Conor, that he doesn’t play anymore. It wasn’t one thing, not a big injury, he woke up one morning and his thighs hurt. Then his back hurt, and his neck got stiff and then someone offered him a job that was more sitting than sprinting and he took it. 

“Okay,” Conor says, “Then we do it.”

It’s a change, but Conor’s still scouting. He’s still looking at talent. Women play rugby by the same rules as he does, it’s really not that different. What is different are the questions. He receives a barrage of e-mails asking why he cares, what do the women actually matter? It’s nothing compared to what Liv gets. She has to lock her twitter to stave of the death threats, and they haven’t even started training yet. It took months to figure things out but Conor put up with it because he knew how important this was to Olivia, how important it is in general. 

It’s the first time in a long time that rugby has felt important. Not since Woodhill has he risen this early, this excited to get to work. It feels like it matters when he’s sitting in business meetings while Liv demands salaries for the national team players, when she demands training facilities and equal opportunities. Conor and Olivia share an office and Conor comes in every day. He never tells Liv how late he stays. Most of the time he’s not actually doing anything, just sitting, double checking, rephrasing a sentence here and there. Olivia has a life and he would never want her to live his. She goes out with friends, she has a new girlfriend every couple weeks. It’s so much easier to do when you’re 24.

Conor’s sitting in a chair with his arms crossed over his chest, not saying much but making it clear that what Liv says goes.

“Ms. Hines,” a man sighs, “We can’t afford to pay these athletes outside of the Olympic year.”

“That’s only every four years. That’s not good enough,” she says, “They won’t be any good if they have to work full time and try to train.”

“We can’t afford to hire a coach!” One of them puts his fist down. 

“Then I’ll do it.”

They make life very difficult for the people in their way. Dom promises that he won’t play in the next Olympics if they don’t pay the women’s team on the same schedule they pay the men’s team. And then they do. 

Conor says something in a newspaper article about all the great player coaches in rugby history, and then he says that Liv will be better than all of them. 

He’s buzzing, constantly, as long as he stays at work, on the pitch, helping Liv to train and recruit until they build their 7 player team, everything’s fine. 

Then he goes home. And there a kids riding bikes down the street and he feels empty again. He knows  _ knows  _ that his career is rewarding and that what he’s doing matters, but he knows something else, he sleeps in a Queen size bed, and one side is always cold. 


	2. Now i can't find the piece Of time much better spent

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Conor and Liv are building something

Conor ended things with Ned before his Olympic year. It wasn’t a lack of love, or a fight, no one cheated on anybody but Conor decided it wasn’t fair, not to Ned. He didn’t want Ned to be stuck. Because Conor chose this, he chose rugby, he chose a life of professional sports. And he traveled, he traveled all over the world, but he never saw anything much other than the inside of a hotel and the rugby pitch. It was one thing when he was playing in Ireland, for a club team, flying for a week or two to play in a tournament, but the Olympics were a different beast and Ned didn’t choose rugby. It would consume him, and he knew it. 

So he told Ned he thought they should take a break. That was over 3 years ago now, and save for one drunken night at a Woodhill reunion, they’ve stayed on a break. 

Conor thinks about that night sometimes, a lot. When he’s alone. At night. It’s not even the sex that he thinks about, letting Ned pull him into an empty classroom, kissing him up and down his neck, pressing their bodies together, wordlessly, gasping into each other’s mouths, groaning and grunting and moaning… okay so he thinks about that part too. But he thinks about what happened after. When they put their clothes back on, and Conor reached out to kiss Ned again and hold him and maybe apologize and beg for him back, he thinks about how Ned shook his head and shrugged his shoulder, and slipped out the door. He thinks about how he had to spend the rest of the night talking to people when all he wanted to do was go home. 

He thinks about how Ned was laughing with their friends all night and Conor was trying to pretend that everything was fine. That he was a chill ex who could still be friends with the boy he broke up with, the man he broke up with. He thinks about how he stopped going to parties where he knew they’d have mutual friends, how his job became his life, how he has no right to be this sad when he’s the one who ended things.

He thinks so fucking much when he’s alone, because there’s no one to tell him to stop. He sees a therapist, sometimes. A lasting impact of dating Ned Roche was learning to ask for help. She talks a lot about anxiety but Conor refuses to put a word on it. 

He hasn’t really talked to his school friends in a while, they have a groupchat, but Conor has those notifications on silent because sometimes it hurt too much to see Ned’s profile picture pop up in his messenger. Dom’s the only one he’s seen regularly, and even then, it’s been a while, and even then, they’re not the kind of people who sit down and talk to each other about anything that matters all that much. 

Olivia drags him out one night. She’s spent all day on the phone with a lawyer she went to uni with trying to convince her to join their side. Conor spent it answering more e-mails. He’s learned the perfect a press release, tell everyone what they’re planning without making anything too political. 

Liv rolls her eyes when she sees Conor still at the computer. 

“I’m going to a club with Meggie, and you’re coming.”

“Who the fuck is Meggie.”

“My girlfriend,” she rolls her eyes. 

The long part of her hair is braided at the side, resting just above the shaved sides. She’s wearing slacks and a white dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up. 

“I’m not taking no for an answer. Pre-drinks at my place, if you don’t show up I  _ will  _ come and get you.”

Conor figures it’s going to be a lot easier if he just does what Olivia wants, so he goes home and switches his white dress shirt for a black one, and combs his hair back, grabs a bottle of wine and lets himself into Olivia’s apartment. 

She has roommates, because that’s what you do when you’re 24, but they stay in their rooms. 

Meggie is pretty. The kind of girl Liv usually goes for. Long hair, round face. She’s shorter than both of them, pale with platinum blonde hair and a gold ring in her nose. She’s wearing a black dress with flowers woven into the lace. Liv’s wearing a brown polo shirt a couple sizes too big for her, the Olympic rings tattoo on her bicep is visible, Conor has the same one on the front of his shoulder, above his collar bone. Dom has one on his wrist. They both look better prepared for a club than Conor does but he tries not to think too hard about what he’s not anymore. 

“Brilliant,” Liv says, she takes the bottle of wine out of his hands and pours three glasses. 

They’re all buzzed by the time they decide to walk to the club. Liv’s place is in town, nobody needs to drive when everything’s this close. 

“I wanted to wait until tommorow, but I have the  _ best  _ fucking news ever, Con,” she grins, pulling her jacket around her shoulders. 

“What?”

“We’re in. They’re letting me coach.”

Conor smiles and wraps his arm around her shoulder. 

“That’s cause for celebration.”

Meggie doesn’t seem to know what’s going on, Conor figures she hasn’t been around long enough to get Liv’s speech about what she does for a living yet. Olivia throws her arms into the air and cheers as loudly as she can into the night, a couple blocks over, someone else cheers, they laugh. 

Meggie’s already a lot drunker than both of them, so she rests her head on Liv’s shoulder while they walk, she giggles when Liv kisses the top of her forehead. 

“Con, mate, we’re celebrating but I swear to god if you stand by the bar the whole time I’ll kill you. Buy someone a drink, dance a little,” she wiggles her eyebrows, “Disappear to the bathroom for like half an hour.”

Conor rolls his eyes. 

There’s a line outside of the club but Olivia seems to know the bouncer. She whispers something in his ear and he chuckles, waving the three of them inside. It’s dim, and there’s purple gels over most of the lights. The bartender’s a tall, thin man wearing suspenders, he has a long beard and hipster glasses. 

Liv pulls Meggie onto the dance floor and winks over her shoulder at Conor. Predictably, he sits down at the bar. He knows he can loosen up, he knows what he can become if he orders enough alcohol. He catches the attention of the bartender and asks for a gin and tonic. 

“Make it a double,” he mutters. 

And he starts to smile, his shoulders relax. There’s a man sitting on the barstool to his left. Conor can see him as he keeps stealing glances. He smirks and looks over at him. 

“Can I get you a drink or something?” Conor asks, the same smirk is on his face. He knows what he looks like, knows how he can charm someone with a smile. 

The man shakes his head, holds his still full pint in front of him. 

“You can just let me keep lookin’ at ya,” he whispers. 

Conor doesn’t blush. 

“You’re far too kind.”

“Do you want to dance?” 

Conor finishes his drink in one swig and nods. He doesn’t hold his hands out immediately but the man presses his body closer to Conor’s and Conor wraps his hands around the man and places them on the small of his back. The man rests his head in the crook of his neck. His tongue darts out of his mouth and bites Conor’s earlobe. 

“I’m Chris,” he whispers. 

“Conor,” Conor says. 

“Come with me,” Chris whispers. 

And Conor’s not proud of the fact that he follows Chris into the bathroom. He’s closer to 30 than 20 now, and this all feels so… young. 

When Chris unbuttons Conor’s shirt, he gently runs his tongue over the rings. 

“Am I about to hook up with an Olympian.”

Conor laughs. 

Olivia cheers when he tells her what happened on the cab ride home. Meggie’s practically in her lap, giggling and whispering. 

He takes another cab from Liv’s apartment back to his house. He doesn’t want his neighbour to see him stumbling home in the morning. Stumbling home in the middle of the night is better. 

He passes out on his couch and when he wakes up his mouth is dry. He stumbles into his kitchen and fills a glass with water. There’s a text from Liv letting him know that she’s going to work from home and Conor sighs. He’s rather be hungover at his desk than at home, but he doesn’t want to face Liv if she finds out he came in on a Sunday morning. 

Conor runs his own hand over the Olympic ring tattoo before he gets in the shower. Everyone on the team got the tattoo, pretty much everyone who goes gets the tattoo and something about that makes Conor feel nice. He can’t say he’s a rugby player anymore, but he’ll always be able to say he’s an Olympian, and the proof is right there, under his skin. 

Those were the fastest two weeks of his life. He wants to be able to say he was miserable knowing that he’d just broken it off with Ned, but he wasn’t. Everyone around him was fighting for the same thing. It was like uni, like secondary school, he shared a room with one of his teammates, Will O’Leary. All the athletes stayed in the same village and he loved it. Winning was the icing on the cake. 

Everybody told him how amazing it was going to be to go. His mother wept when he called her to tell him the national team and qualified and he was going to be on the national team. He remembers seeing Liv partying her way through the village and waking up with the energy of a professional athlete. He remembers the long distance charges on his phone bill from when he called Victor and Wally in excitement the night before the bronze medal game. 

Everybody told him how amazing it would be to go, but no one told him how lonely it would be to come back. He’d torpedoed his entire life. Given up the only constant that there was and all he had to bring home was a disc made out of bronze. He came home to an empty apartment in the middle of Dublin and there were reminders of Ned everywhere. He moved a month later. 

Conor’s over it, it’s been three years. Three Years. Three years and his life is finally back to normal. Of course he remembers Ned sometimes, he was head over heels, absolutely heart poundingly in love with him. But sometimes the best way to love someone is to let them go. It’s normal. Everything’s normal.

There’s a text from Victor waiting on his phone when he wakes up. 

**VIC:** **Congrats on the job mate!**

Conor types out his appreciation. He and Victor make plans to get dinner some time. That’s what adulthood is, making plans to get dinner that you’ll probably never follow through on. 

Conor has made his living playing a game. It’s a kids game really. If you think about it too hard, it really makes no sense, but if you let it take you over, if you give yourself to the game, it makes all the sense in the world. Working with Liv and Dom means he’s around people who get that. And maybe he had that for a while, with Victor, and Wally, and Weasel, and Keith and Tom, but those guys have different priorities now. He doesn’t blame them, he just feels lonely. 

Olivia still wears a number 8 on the back of her shirt. Conor’s behind the bench at the European qualifying tournament. They need at least a second place finish and Olivia looks ready to run through a brick wall. She wraps her knees and wipes her hands on her shorts. The other starters surround her. The oldest is a year younger than Conor, the youngest is 17. 

Conor doesn’t expect to hear familiar cheering as the women take the field. He turns around and sees the Woodhill rugby team. Victor and Keith and Tom. Wally has a toddler balanced on his knee, a little boy with fair blond hair. Conor hates that he doesn’t recognize the baby anymore. Weasel’s sitting with his feet kicked out in front of him, resting on the back of the chair in front of him And next to him is Ned.  _ Ned _ . 

And Conor’s throat closes because it’s Ned. He’s seen him since they broke up but not on a rugby field, and for some reason that’s so different. Ned’s smiling but he’s very clearly and obviously not looking at Conor. Conor wants to ask, he really really does, why would Ned come, but Liv’s the only one with that answer and he’s not risking a distraction. 

The lump in Conor’s throat won’t go away and he’s never been happier that he doesn’t have to do anything vital because he’s gone. He’s somewhere out in space, where else is he supposed to go when his first and probably only love is sitting behind him, eating stadium fries and playing with someone’s baby. He doesn’t come back until someone’s cheering behind him. And Olivia is screaming and sobbing tears of joy and Dom’s jumping down from where he’s been assistant coaching and throws his arms around Conor and screams so loudly that Conor can’t help but come back to earth. He screams, he hugs the players still sitting on the bench, hugs the players coming off the field. Liv puts Dom on her back and does a lap of the field. The fans are jumping down from the stands, and the french fans are sulking in their seats. 

He feels Victor’s hands on his back. 

“Mate!” Victor shouts over the crowd. 

“Holy shit!” Conor says. 

“This is just the start motherfuckers!” Olivia cheers. 

Ned’s holding Wally’s kid and Conor absolutely can’t deal with that, not now, not here. Ned throws the kid in the air and cheers. He looks different now. More upright. More sure of himself. He wears khakis and business shirts and thick rimmed glasses now. There are still pins on the backpack he carries with him. And if Conor was still in love with Ned he’d think about the stubble on the bottom of his chin and how he wanted to brush his thumb through it. 

So Conor leaves dinner before Ned has time to say anything to him. He says that he has to work and Liv starts to protest but Conor looks her in the eyes and shakes his head ever so slightly. She just nods. 

Conor has things to look forward to. He writes them on a Calendar on his wall. He connects all the dots so he knows what to do to get there. This summer is going to be his summer. The summer Olympics are in Los Angeles and he’ll be there, with Liv and Dom and his new team. Really. All Conor wants is a team. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sadboy sadboy


	3. goodness knows why I'd throw it to the birds

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Someone finally calls Conor on his self destructive tendencies

The fortunate thing about owning your own house, small as it may be, is that no one can tell you off when you start punching shit. Conor’s fist goes through a layer of drywall and a mirror on a Monday morning in June. He bandages his knuckles and goes to work. His phone is still on the bathroom sink, text messages open. The last message 

**Liv:** **I know you won’t like this, but he has the money and the name recognition. Please just come in and talk about it.**

Conor tries to convince himself on the way in that it’s not Ned he’s angry about. He can handle Ned’s presence, that’s fine. He’s an investor, a sponsor and if he wants to work in sports then he’ll have to deal with those. He’s just surprised, wishes Liv would have told him before she signed a contract with his ex. 

Their office is small, it’s rented place, net to an accounting firm and it’s where Liv and Conor do all of the paperwork that paying and signing new players entails. They’ve been spending less and less time here recently, training camp is in full swing, but it’s the best place for the worst meeting of Conor’s life to occur.

Ned’s sitting on the sofa. He’s relaxed, hands folded in his lap, and he’s wearing those fucking glasses again and Conor would quite like to get that image out of his head. He’s wearing a pair of dark, crisp jeans with an untucked floral patterned shirt. And fuck, he’s still so pretty. Conor puts his laptop bag on his desk, tries to hide his right hand in his pocket, but Liv sees, and of course, Ned sees. The lacerations from the mirror scabbed over but he has the knuckles of a man who definitely just punched something, really hard. 

There’s a water bottle in Ned’s hand and he’s taking small sips out of it. Conor swears he sees Ned wink at him. 

Olivia sits on the couch next to Ned but Conor leans against the wall. 

“Fuck, I hate being a grown up, it’s so much hader to see you all these days.”

Conor remembers hearing his mum complain about the same things when he was younger, he never understood it until he was done uni and his best friends were miles away and Liv’s saying it now too. Fuck, he misses it. 

Of course there are parts he doesn’t miss, acne and patchy stubble and never feeling like he was enough of anything. At least not he knows what he’s not enough of. 

Looking at Ned, so many things come rushing back. How Ned followed him wherever he went. Conor took a rugby scholarship in Dublin, so Ned enrolled in an English program. Conor thinks about how much Ned hated everything about that school, how he changed his program 4 times before he finally graduated with a general humanities degree, something he called “functionally useless.” Conor majored in business, because that’s what the rest of the rugby team did, he won’t deny that it’s coming in handy right about now. He remembers long nights, lying in his bedroom at the rugby house. Ned sneaking in the window because even though he told his teammates right away they still wanted Conor to “keep it to himself.”

He remembers crying, thinking about how they were never going to be 16 again, Ned curled up beside him. And he remembers those world cups, Ned in the stands, hugging him after the games. He remembers thinking that he was right back where he started because he couldn’t bring himself to kiss his boyfriend. Not when the national team spot could be taken away, not when there were so many other people who wanted what he had. 

He remembers Ned being okay with that. He remembers twin sized beds in every single on of Ned’s dorm rooms, and eventually in the house that he rented with some friends from school. 

He remembers the times where Ned felt like the only thing that the world couldn’t take from him. He remembers crying when his dad died and calling Ned from the bathroom outside his lecture hall. He remembers strong arms wrapped around him as he sat on the tile floor. He remember Ned not once telling him he was “sorry for his loss,” and how good that felt. Ned let him be complicated, he let him be messy and wrong and he loved him through it. 

And at the end of it all, Conor knew that wasn’t fair. That Ned had to give so much of himself to Conor, while Conor gave so much of himself to rugby. 

And he’s sitting right here. Looking at him like nothing’s wrong. Holding the briefcase he carries now. Conor tells himself Ned wouldn’t be where he is if Conor hadn’t ended things. When they broke up, Ned found new things to give himself to. So he started to work for a charity, anti-bullying, tolerance, acceptance, it was standard stuff. Now Ned sits on their board, he co-ordinates a lot of their LGBT outreach events, and Conor knows that’s why he’s here. Ned is just  _ so good  _ he wants to reach out and hold him and tell him he’s proud, he won’t. 

Ned talks to Olivia while Conor stands. He pulls out a few papers. One of them has a drawing of their kit in the middle. Mostly white with green and orange stripes going up and down the side. On the back of the shorts though, is a logo. It’s an umbrella, small stylized, with rainbow detailing. Conor knows it’s the charity Ned works for. 

“It’s perfect, Ned.”

“I’m sure the money stuff will work out. I sent an e-mail that you can look over but the gist of it is free training space and travel accomadations. 

Olivia nods, “I think that’ll work for us.”

She looks at Conor, he nods. It’s Ned, and that very much doesn’t work for Conor, but he doesn’t let his team down, and this would be a really fucking dumb reason to let his team down. 

So the umbrellas go on their kits. The players are bouncing in every practice from there on out. It’s suddenly real. 

The Olympic tournament is a rugby 7s tournament, not rugby union, which is what Conor and Olivia played at school. It’s a faster, shorter game with a 7 person roster, and seven minute halves. 

There are seven starters, Olivia’s one of them. Then there’s Niamh, she’s the seventeen year old, young but endlessly mature. She’s quiet to make up for the fact that she doesn’t feel like she’s really earned the spot. Then there’s Brie and Claud, twins who play out-half and scrum-half. The oldest woman, Abbie has long hair and a family at home, she left her husband with the kids to train says she’s doing it for them. She has a kind of mothering energy. The last two starters are still in uni, they play for different teams and have a sort of friendly rivalry because of it. Jo and Margie. 

Conor watches while Olivia coaches, he can’t deny that she’s really good at what she does. He does what he needs to do, everything that she’d be doing if she was on the bench instead of playing, encouraging the players, filling water bottles. He loves it until Ned starts showing up. He sits in the stands, more casual than business. 

Conor could handle it if Ned was angry, if he hated him but Ned’s pleasant. He treats Conor like nothing’s wrong, like he didn’t break both of their hearts years ago, like he hadn’t ruined all the plans they’d made. Conor doesn’t’ dread it, he could never dread doing this but he is anxious about Ned, he hates seeing him there. 

So one Friday after work, Conor goes out on his own.

The club isn’t the same one Ned found him in almost ten years ago but it has a similar energy. He did a few shots of whiskey before he left the house but the first thing he does is order a beer. And soon enough, he’s talking to someone and soon enough they’re walking into the bathroom and soon enough Conor’s pressed up against the wall of the accessible stall listening to a man whose name he doesn’t know is grunting in his ear. 

When Conor gets fucked, that’s the only thing he has time to think about. That’s the only feeling there’s space for. He doesn’t think about Ned. 

Conor gets drunk, he dances and he flirts and he’s not quite sure if it’s the same man he meets in the bathroom again later in the night. He washes his hands, trying not to look his own reflection in the eyes. He’s alone now and there are always too many thoughts when that happens. He slaps a smile back on his face and tries to strut out of the bathroom. 

The door catches when he tries to push it open, he realizes that it’s because someone else is trying to open it from the other side. He’s confronted with one man that he never thought he’d see again. Not for any grand dramatic reason, just that you never expect to see your teachers after you finish school. 

“Mr. Sherry,” Conor slurs, not sure if it’s a question or an exclamation. 

It doesn’t take Mr. Sherry very long to recognize him. 

Conor realizes how awful he must look, a mess with sweat in his hair. There’s a hickey on his neck and he’s doing his best to remain upright. 

“What’re you doinhere?” Conor leans against the wall non-chalantly. 

“I’m out with my- Are you alright, you look a bit green.” Sherry interrupts himself.

“Some air’s probly all I need,” Conor answers. 

“Right, let me walk you out. 

Sherry doesn’t look exactly the same as Conor remembers, but he’s not much different. There are a few more lines around his eyes. Conor just nods, letting Sherry wrap his arms around his waist and help him out of the club. 

Conor falls to his knees the second the cold air hits his face. He starts retching, it’s mostly bile that comes up. Conor’s no stranger to throwing up outside of gay clubs, he’s practically an expert. But Sherry’s hand on his back, comforting and firm is new. Conor starts to sob, hopes the tears are disguised, attributed to the vomit. Sherry doesn’t bother him about it. 

“Arthur’s bring the car ‘round. Come for a cup of tea”

Conor nods, lets Sherry help him to his feet. He collapses into the back of Arthur’s car, head against the window. He can’t be bothered to eavesdrop on Sherry and Arthur but he knows they’re talking about him. Arthur looks at him from the driver’s seat, pity in his eyes and Conor suddenly feels very very small again. Like he’s riding in the back of his mother’s car after rugby practice, crying because he didn’t want it to be over. Sherry and Arthur live in an apartment. It’s homey and it’s cozy and there’s a cat wandering around. 

Arthur hangs up his coat and kisses Sherry on the cheek, whispers something about tea and Sherry nods. What Conor wouldn’t give to have that. 

He hears Athur moving in the kitchen while Sherry gives him a blanket and a seat. Arthur hands him a glass of water without anyone asking him to. Conor downs the entire thing. Is head hurts but he’s starting to see more clearly. 

“You look awful, Conor,” Sherry says, he was always blunt. 

“Not feeling great either,” Conor admits. 

“Why were you out alone?”

“I’m allowed to be,” Conor’s defensive.

Sherry just shakes his head and sighs, “You broke up with Ned?”

He nods and god, does he ever want to cry about that right now. 

Conor just shrugs, there’s no why, nothing else to say. 

Then Arthur’s there, standing next to him with a cup of tea. Conor takes it, let’s the warmth from the mug warm up his hands. 

He looks at the door, “I don’t want to uh… be any trouble, I can get a cab”

Sherry shakes his head, “At least finish the tea.”

Arthur talks to him about rugby, and Conor’s glad for the distraction. Then Ned comes up, he brings him up too, a rookie mistake. 

Arthur speaks, “It sounds like you never got over him. I know it’s not my place, but…” he trails off, wanders back into the kitchen. 

Sherry looks at Conor, and Conor can see the pain in his eyes. 

“Conor, if I may,” he starts.

Conor nods. 

“It seems like you never really stopped punishing yourself.”

Conor pulls the tea closer to his face and takes a sip. 

“I don’t follow.”

“I taught you for two years. I remember when I first saw you. I wanted to know why you’d play a sport like rugby, that wouldn’t accept who you were, that left you covered in bruises and I realized soon, that it’s because you love it. Am I correct in saying that sometimes it doesn’t love you back?”

Conor nods, “because I’m gay,” he mutters. 

Sherry nods sadly, “I think you’ve always punished yourself for ‘not being good enough’ for the sport.”

Conor swallows the lump in his throat. 

“It’s just that you always seemed very intent on being alone, being sad. I don’t think you went out tonight because you thought you’d have a good time. I think you wanted to be destructive.”

“You’re still such a teacher.”

Sherry nods. 

“If you still love Ned, why would you be the one to break up?”

“If you love something, let it go,” he shrugs. 

“Bullshit!” Arthur calls from the kitchen, “Sorry!” He quickly adds, “Actually no,” he comes out into the living room and sits next to Sherry. 

“I don’t know you Conor, but I’ve listened to my partner rant and rave about two boys that he taught ten years ago for a long time,” he puts his hand on top of Sherry’s, “I know that’s not true because before he showed up at your school, Dan broke up with me. And found him again. There’s a second half to that saying Conor.”

“If it loves you back it’ll come back to you,” Conor mutters. 

“Seems like he came back,” Arthur raises an eyebrow. 

Conor nods and buries his face in the blanket, “Fuck,” he lets out a breath. 

“I won’t tell you what to do Conor,” Sherry says 

“I will,” Arthur butts in, “Don’t be fucking stupid.”

The three of them laugh. 

Tell 13 year old Conor that one day this would be his life and he wouldn’t believe you. He would have been terrified, thrilled of the idea. He was gay, he had mentors who were gay, he’d been in love and out of love and to the Olympics. And Arthur and Dan were right, he’s making himself unhappy on purpose.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Arthur: "so THIS is the disaster boy you told me about"


	4. Come and get it its yours

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You can't really say "hey i know i dumped you, but actually i never stopped being in love, forgive me?" so Conor and Ned keep it casual

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: Conor and Ned do some (very consesual) boning in this chapter which I describe in fairly un-sexy detail

Conor has never struggled with knowing what he wants. He knows, he’s just never known how to ask. With all the chaos around the Olympics, he’s forgotten to figure out how to tell Ned. The more he thinks about it, the guiltier he feels. What a dick move, like  _ hey i know i dumped you, but actually i never stopped being in love, forgive me, okay?  _ The more he thinks about it, the more he thinks he can’t do that to Ned. 

Ned brings on a secretary two weeks before the games start, and Conor’s pretty sure Liv started sleeping with her on her second day of work. Nobody really minds, it’s just a little annoying how much Liv winks at Erin. 

The four of them are at the field after training, the players are showering, getting ready for one last team meeting. In two days, they’ll be on a private plane, everyone’s excited, even Conor. 

Conor doesn’t sit in on the post-game meetings, instead he tidies up. It’s not his place to coach, and Liv’s doing a damn good job on her own, so Conor wanders around the field under the dim lights. He puts the balls back into the mesh bag they keep them in and throws one tackling dummy after the other over his shoulder and hauls them into the equipment shed. Liv’s somewhere with Erin. She said she wanted to go over her meeting notes, Conor knows that’s a lie. Ned’s unaccounted for. A phone call probably, answering an important e-mail, being unbearably perfect. Conor organizes the dummies, jumps when he hears the door open. 

“Shit, sorry,” Ned says. 

Conor swallows his own tongue. 

Ned’s dragging the mesh bag behind him. 

“Where do you keep these?”

“Over there,” Conor points at the empty corner. 

He watches Ned pull the bag across the floor. His breath catches in his throat. 

“I can manage,” Conor says. 

“It’s fine,” Ned answers. 

Fuck Conor hates this so much. He wants to turn around, grab Ned by the arm and pull him close, press their lips together for the first time in so many years. But he doesn’t. Instead he and Ned wordlessly move the rest of the equipment inside. 

“I’ll see you tomorrow, then,” Ned brushes his hands on the thighs of his jeans. He’s wearing a t-shirt with some kind of watercolor pattern on it. 

“Right,” Conor chokes out. Ned is distracting in every imaginable way.

Every atom in his body is pulled towards this boy. This boy who can grow a beard now, who’s really more of a man. This man who still dyes his hair, not as bright but red nonetheless. This man who wears high fashion button-ups with ripped jeans. This man who Conor can’t stop thinking about.

He keeps it all inside, even as he walks to his car and Ned walks to his. He waves goodbye and waits until he’s hit the road to let the grimace take over his face. 

That last meeting might kill him. It’s him, Ned, Olivia, and Erin all sitting on one side of the table. 

“We’re very impressed with what you’ve managed to do,” one of them says, talking more to Conor than anyone else. 

He shakes his head, “This was all Olivia.”

“Right,” he says, “And Mr. Roche, thank you for your partnership. 

Then they have to look over an itinerary, a code of conduct. 

“Now obviously, what you do private is entirely up to you,” he chuckles, “We’ve all heard stories. But you do need to maintain a certain level of respectability in public, in front of the media especially. I don’t want to see any tabloids or anything that might upset the general Irish public.”

He doesn’t say it out loud, but Conor knows “be gay,” is on that list. It’s strange. The logo on their shorts is explicitly a symbol from a gay charity but Conor just knows that if someone got a picture of him in a club kissing a man, or running down the field to embrace someone, that would cross the line. They were fine supporting the community in theory, they were okay with Liv being butch and having dating rumours follow her but Conor, something about him is just different. It’s like he loses all credibility, all masculinity, the second someone finds out the kind of people he likes to sleep with. 

The worst part is that they take it. Conor looks at Liv and shakes his head when she starts to speak. They’ve all worked way too hard for this to be ruined because he can’t keep it in his pants for two weeks. It’s not like he has anyone he wants to run and kiss after a match, nothing romantic, no yearning. 2 weeks of celibacy? Easy.

When Conor gets on the plane, he’s somewhere he hasn’t been in a long time. The closet. 

Ned sits next to him and he thinks he might explode. 

“You know you don’t have to take shit from them,” he says. 

Conor shakes his head, “It’s fine,” I’ll lie low. 

The players are settled in as Olivia and Erin make a couple final adjustments. The federation has sent a secretary of their own, and a few PR representatives. They sit at the front of the plane and keep their heads down. Niamh has a pair of headphones on and her head in a book. Brie and Claud are playing scrabble on Brie’s phone and Abbie’s on a call with her kids. 

“You shouldn’t have to lie low,” Ned insists. 

“Ned, it’s fine, this isn’t about me, it’s about them.”

“Yeah but…”

“Ned!” Conor snaps, “It’s not like they’re asking me to get a fake girlfriend. It’s not like I have a boyfriend who I’m pretending doesn’t exist, they’re asking me not to get photographed at a nightclub with a dick in my mouth,” 

Conor expects him to go off. To talk about respectability politics, and how there have been plenty of straight athletes caught at strip clubs and Conor shouldn’t be any different but Ned’s mouth forms a small O. 

“I thought you did have a boyfriend.”

Conor snorts, “No,” he looks back down at his phone. Thanks god that the seats are so far apart and he’s not touching Ned with any part of his body. 

“I uh. Just thought. Don’t know what I thought actually,” Ned clears his throat. 

Conor knows he’s being cold but it’s the only way he can think of to keep things the way they are. 

“Have you? Had a boyfriend since we…”

“Since I broke up with you? No. I told you, my life isn’t fair to anyone.”

“Yeah. Me either I guess.”

And that surprises Conor. Ned’s quite possibly the best boyfriend anyone could have Conor dumped him because he thought he deserved better, the fact that Ned didn’t go out and get it? That hurts. 

“Casual’s good though,” Conor says. 

Ned raises his eyebrow and Conor hates himself for saying it almost immediately. 

“Anyway,” Conor buries himself in his phone again. 

He thinks he feels Ned shift in the seat next to him. 

Conor watches a movie, checks his twitter. Everyone else falls asleep on the transatlantic flight. Ned’s head lolls to the side, and Conor can hear him listening to music. He can’t sleep. Not when Ned’s next to him. Conor knows that’s not what he should be anxious about, not when so many other things are on the line but it is. His chest feels tight and his stomach is clenching. So he gets up and walks to the bathroom. It’s a nice plane, he wouldn’t expect Ned to have any less. 

He locks the door behind him and lets the cold water run over his wrists. He wants to throw up. He takes a deep breath. It’s just Ned. 

Ned.

Ned 

“Conor,” Ned’s voice. 

Conor runs his hands through his hair and opens the door. Ned’s standing on the other side, his clothes are wrinkled and his hair is a mess. Ned doesn’t say anything. Just grabs Conor by the shirt collar and pushes him back into the bathroom. Ned’s lips are on his immediately and Conor wants to scream. He feels everything that he hasn’t been feeling for the past three years. Conor has to jump up onto the counter next to the sink to keep from falling over. Ned pushes his way between Conor’s legs and keeps kissing him. His tongue scrapes the bottom of Conor’s teeth and Conor sighs happily.

“Casual’s good, right?” Ned says when he pulls away for a breath. 

Conor nods furiously and Ned’s lips are back. Conor sucks in a breath and Ned undoes Conor’s belt. He lets it drop to the floor with a clatter. His hands tear open the top button of Conor’s pants. 

Conor groans as he feels Ned’s mouth on his dick, clamps his hand over his mouth to keep himself from waking the entire team. Ned's just so fucking good at this. Conor holds back another moan, threads his fingers through Ned’s hair. He’d take a sloppy blowjob from Ned over earth shattering mind blowing sex with anyone else. 

He takes his hand out of Ned’s hair and reaches for his belt, he slips his hand below his waistband. It’s awkward and he’s reaching for Ned but he can’t wait to get his hands on him. 

“Fuck,” Ned moans and Conor throws his head back still biting down on his fist. 

It’s embarrassing how fast Conor comes. Trying not to groan, trying not to look down at Ned looking up at him because he doesn’t want to fall in love. 

He slides off the sink and onto his knees and gets his mouth around Ned. He’s quiet but every now and then he lets out a sharp gasp and Conor smiles to himself. Ned’s hands tentatively tug on Conor’s hair as he hits the back of Conor’s throat. 

They sneak out of the bathroom one after the other. Pulling their pants back on, wiping the sweat off their brows and then they sit, silently.

It takes Conor a minute to adjust to America. It’s early morning when they land and the air feels heavier. Conor can’t tell if it’s the pressure or the smog. He can’t help but watch Ned as he slides into the car that the federation sent for them. Liv and the team are going to the athlete’s village, Conor, Ned and the rest of the “executives” are going to a hotel a few blocks away. Conor remembers the athletes village. It was a constant party. He couldn’t figure out how so many people set personal bests so clearly hungover. He also hooked up with a triathlete to try and get over Ned, to no avail. 

He doesn’t let himself think about how close Ned is, just a few feet away on the other side of a wall. He throws his bags down on the chair. The carpet is soft under his feet so he kicks off his shoes. It feels clean. He can see the city from his window but all he really wants to do is sleep. He draws the curtains and strips off his slacks and unbuttons his shirt, throwing it across the room. He flops face first into the pillow, he hates admitting how much he loves hotels. Loves the soft pillows, somebody else making his bed. 

He falls asleep wondering what Ned’s doing in the other room. Remembering what it was like to curl up in a bed next to him. 

The rugby tournament has to start right away in order to be wrapped up by the end of the two weeks. There are two preliminary games before the opening ceremonies and Conor finds himself behind the bench for both. Ned’s sitting somewhere in a press box but Conor hopes he watches when Conor celebrates the first win, running onto the field and cheering.

They play the second game in the afternoon, before the opening ceremonies. It’s the first time they get to meet the other Irish athletes. He sees Dom, they’ve asked him to carry the flag and Conor’s proud of his old friend. There’s the women’s rugby team, the men’s rugby team, three runners, a pair of canoers and an equestrian. It’s nothing like the size of the American team, or team GB, but they’re rowdy and thrilled. Ned doesn’t walk with them but Conor knows he’s watching somewhere. Dom’s riding on Olivia’s shoulders, both of them are clearly but not belligerently drunk. They’re riding high on the win from this afternoon. 

Beyond that, the ceremony is pretty boring. They sit there in their seats, a couple trainers and coaches are behind them. Even Conor recognizes the celebrities and the bands that they bring out in the three hour ceremony before they light the torch. 

They go to a party in the Olympic village after, the Irish team got invited to pop champagne with the Canadians, and there’s no way any of them are going to turn that down. Liv disappears with a swimmer and Dom stands on top of a bar singing drinking songs with a soccer player from the Canadian seaside. 

Conor gets drunk  _ drunk.  _ He forgets exactly what he’s drank but he winds up dancing on top of a table with one of the Canadian rugby players. Tomorrow they’ll be rivals, but tonight they’re drunk and having fun. Someone pops another bottle of champagne and Conor stumbles off of the table. There’s an arm underneath of him before he hits the floor. 

“Thanks,” he mumbles. 

The arms feel familiar and comforting. 

“Think I’m gonna throw up,” Conor slurs. 

Ned wraps his arm around Conor’s waist. 

“Fresh air, man,” Ned says and helps him outside. They’re on a balcony and Conor’s head is spinning. It’s just a mess of. NEd Ned Ned Ned Kiss Ned, Kiss Ned, tell Ned you love him. You love NEd, NED. 

Whatever small part of Conor’s brain that’s still functioning takes over and he says. 

“M’gonna head back.”

“Let me take you.”

And fuck that wasn’t the plan but the next thing he knows he’s halfway up the block, stumbling a couple feet away from Ned. He doesn’t talk. Just focuses on putting one foot in front of the other. 

He doesn’t talk in the elevator either. That part of his brain keeps him silent, straight backed. 

Ned walks him down the hallway and helps him fumble for his keycard. He walks into the room slowly after Conor and stands with his hands in his pockets, rocking back and forth. The part of his brain that was still functioning, loses and Conor pounces as soon as the door closes. 

He’s sloppy and sweaty, but Ned humours him as he sends his lips crashing into his. 

“Mmm,Ned,” He says. 

Ned puts his hand on Conor’s chest and Conor looks down at him. 

“I wanna have sex with you,” Conor says. 

Ned shakes his head, “You need to go to sleep. You’re drunk.”

“What I need is you,” Conor says. 

“Conor, I don’t want to do something either of us regrets in the morning.”

“C’mon,” Conor says, “on the plane, you said it, casual.”

Maybe it’s because Conor’s so close to blacking out that he doesn’t notice the pained expression on Ned’s face.

“Not like this, put on pajamas and I’ll get some water.”

Ned disappears into the bathroom and runs the tap for the exact amount of time it takes Conor to put on a pair of basketball shorts and sit at the edge of his bed. 

“You’re so good, Ned,” Conor says, a dopey grin on his face. 

Ned puts the water on the table beside Conor’s bed. 

“That’s why it was so easy to fall in love with you. Because you’re good and good people deserve to be loved and that’s why it’s so hard to not be in love with you anymore, because you’re still so good.”

“Go to sleep Conor,” Ned says. 

“I think I could still be in love with you,” he says, burying his face in the pillow.

“Go to sleep.”

So Conor does, he crawls under the heavy duvet and Ned turns off the light. 

He hears Ned sigh as the door clicks behind him. 

He falls asleep as soon as his head hits the pillow. Then his brain sets to work painting over his memories with black ink, making everything fuzzy and just out of reach.

He wakes up the next morning, the sun’s streaming in through the sliver in the curtains and his head hurts. His mouth is dry and he finds a glass of water on his table. He remember stumbling home and Ned. He remembers Ned being there, his presence.

He stretches, reaches fo his phone. 6 a.m. That’s sleeping in for Conor. 

He finds a text from Liv that was sent twenty minutes ago and a couple of e-mails he can’t bother himself to care about. 

**Liv:** **Did you get home okay, didn’t see you leave.**

“Ned helped me home.”

Liv responds with a string of vaguely sexually suggestive emojis that Conor takes two seconds to decode. 

“Nothing happened he literally just walked me home.”

**Liv:** **Ok, mile high club.**

“Says the woman working her way through the Canadian swim team.”

Conor takes the elevator to the lobby, decides to take advantage of free breakfast. He has never seen Ned out of bed before the sun rose in his life, and yet, he’s sitting in his own booth with a coffee in front of him. He’s reading something, a black bound book. Conor fills his plate and considers sitting on his own, but thinks it would be stranger to ignore Ned than to sit with him. 

“Morning,” Ned says, he sets his book down and smiles gently

Conor sets his plate down and sits across the table. 

“Sorry if I was a pest or anything last night”

Ned shakes his head, “Nah. I wanted to leave anyway. Dragging you home was a good excuse.’

Conor laughs, “Yeah it was uh… I was pretty gone.”

“Don’t worry about it, you didn’t do anything unfathomably stupid.”

Conor nods, “Thanks.”

“Like the good ol days.”

Ned shakes his head patiently. 

“Are you nervous?” Ned asks. 

“I think I’ve done everything I can by now. Nothing I can really screw up.”

That’s the truth, but it’s also not all of it because Conor’s terrified. He knows that just getting there is more than anyone even expected of them. Convincing the players, convincing the federation, that was the uphill battle. That’s what consumed his life for months, and he did it, that part was over. There was really nothing else he could do but that doesn’t change the fact that he hates losing. 

“Game’s tomorrow”

Conor nods, “You gonna be there.”

“There’s a box for the sponsors. It’ll be me and some rich assholes for a couple hours.”

Conor laughs. 

Ned looks down at his coffee, “Whole day off today though. That’s nice.”

“Yeah,” Conor runs his finger around the edge of his plate.

“We could hang out,” Ned doesn’t look at Conor and Conor doesn’t look at Ned. They both understand. 

“The uh… preliminary round for football starts at noon, if you want to hang out and watch something.”

“I’d like that,” Ned nods. 

They finish their breakfast in silence. Ned winks at Conor as they leave the elevator. 

Conor doesn’t wait for housekeeping, he makes his own bed and hangs a do not disturb sign on the door. He turns on Argentina vs. USA and tells Ned that the door will be unlocked.

When Ned comes in, Conor’s intently focused on the match. Ned sits on the edge of Conor’s bed and watches along Conor. Conor feels Ned looking at him every few minutes until he finally clears his throat. 

“Do you wanna-maybe. I dunno. Like sit on the bed, I’m sure it’s more comfortable.”

“Yeah. Sure,” Conor says. 

He stands up and sits next to Ned. Ned takes Conor’s hand and places it on his thigh. 

“You don’t actually want to watch football, do you?” Conor says quietly. 

Ned shakes his head. 

“Okay,” Conor nods, a little more enthusiastically than he means to. 

Ned covers Conor’s mouth with his own, they fall backwards into the bed and for a long time they just kiss. Lips and tongues and warmth. Conor can pretend now. Everything’s fine. He still has Ned, and this.. This is the best of both worlds. He gets Ned and Ned doesn’t have to deal with all the worst parts of his life. 

The first time Ned and Conor had done anything more than fool around was the summer after Woodhill in Ned’s parents’ house. Conor spent more time there than anywhere else that summer. In between summer jobs and rugby summer league, they found time to intently plan just how they were going to do it. Ned always insisted that virginity was a dumb idea, paternal and patronising, and Conor always just nodded. It didn’t stop Ned from turning himself inside out trying to make things perfect. It was like he had a checklist and wouldn’t let them cross the bridge until he checked everything off the list. When it finally happened, Conor was on his back, underneath of Ned. Sweat dripped down Ned’s face and he looked like something out of Conor’s fantasy. Ned asked, and he talked, making sure everything was fine even as Conor insisted it was and he wanted Ned in whatever way Ned wanted to give himself. That he loved him

Ned bites down gently on Conor’s neck, hands working at Conor’s belt. Conor’s on his back looking up at Ned and he hopes the dumbstruck awe isn’t too evident on his face. It’s strange, trying to hide from someone who has his hand wrapped around your dick, but that’s what Conor’s doing. Ned can never know that Conor would go back to him in a heartbeat, that would ruin them both. 

Conor wraps his thighs around Ned’s torso as his hips buck up. 

“Patient,” Ned whispers. 

Conor pouts, “Oh my god, Ned, please.”

“Do you have… uh, condoms and stuff.”

Conor nods, “In my carry on. Let me…”

He jumps off the bed, he’s never dug through a duffel bag more quickly. While he’s standing, Conor takes his shirt off. Ned follows suit. They both strip down to their boxers and Conor sets down the condoms and a bottle of lube on the night table. He doesn’t let himself think because if he thinks then he’ll freak out because this is happening and he really doesn’t deserve it. 

“Fuck,” Conor hissess. 

Ned runs his hands through Conor’s hair, lips still pressed together. 

Conor is no stranger to the world of casual sex, but sex with Ned was never casual, he doesn’t have a roadmap for this. He decides that anything that happens for the next hour stays there. One beautiful blissed out hour that will have no bearing on anything they do for the rest of their lives. 

Ned trails kisses down Conor’s chest. 

“Fucking hell,” Ned breathes out. 

Conor smirks to himself. 

And Ned’s always been good with his mouth, words or otherwise, gentle and warm. Exploring, pushing in deeper and faster until Conor’s biting down on his lips trying not to beg Ned to just fuck him already. 

Conor can’t make himself close his eyes as Ned rolls on a condom and coats himself in the lube. He looks up, open mouthed, slack jawed as Ned stays perfectly still. Conor puts his hand on Ned’s arm and nods. 

“You’re good,” Conor says on an outbreath. 

It’s been three years since Conor’s felt this close to another person, since he’s trusted the person on top of him so wholly. Conor knows it’s stupid to be so dramatic about sex, that everyone does it so it’s not a big deal, but this just  _ feels  _ like a big deal. This just feels like so much. 

He doesn’t breathe a sigh of relief when it’s over. Doesn’t hope that Ned rolls over and leaves his room as soon as possible. Doesn’t say that he’s got to get going, promise to call and delete someone’s number. He falls back against the pillow, sticky and sweaty and entirely disgusting but happy nonetheless. Ned ties of the condom and drops it in the trash and slides out of bed. He comes back with a warm washcloth and runs it over Conor’s torso. Then he kisses him, full and sweet. 

Conor lets himself have this, Ned curled up against Conor’s body, arm draped over his chest. They don’t talk about any of it and when Conor starts to drift off, he feels Ned get up and leave. He squeezes his eyes shut even tighter. 

“Damn it,” he hears Ned mutter. Even quieter but Conor knows he hears it, Ned whispers, “I love you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> idiots in love who can't imagine that the other one feels the same way??? yes pls


	5. Won't you let me meet you at the pool?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Life never goes back to the way it was when you were seventeen

The worst part about all of this, is that Conor knows that if they were 16 again, they would have talked about it. Now he can’t bring himself to do it, now Ned thinks he doesn’t want him. And how could Ned know? How can Conor possibly expect Ned to know that a part of him desperately wishes he hadn’t done it. 

Ned shouldn’t love Conor, not according to Conor at least. How can he tell Ned that when Ned doesn’t know Conor knows he loves him.

Waking up from a nap at 3 in the afternoon will never not be disorienting, especially as he remembers what happened. He forces himself into the shower before he meets Dom and Liv for dinner. A celebratory dinner, as it turns out. Liv hadn’t known Dom was going to score 4 tries in his first match of the tournament when she booked the table, but it was a happy coincidence. 

Just the three of them, they agreed, no dates, no distractions. Conor’s thrilled he won’t have to try to remember Liv’s newest girlfriend’s name all night.

There’s one empty chair at the table so they pile their coats on top of it. Dom is so much more put together than the kid Conor once new. He cleans up well, knows how to use cufflinks and smile for a photo. Conor always looked forward to playing with him, because the post-game reporters went to him instead of Conor for a quote. 

They order a bottle of wine and Liv toasts them. 

“To fucking good rugby games.”

Dom and Conor laugh and Conor sips his drink. He remembers when Olivia stood on tables with solo cups in her hand to make toasts. 

They talk about rugby because it’s what they know how to talk about. Conor imagines, that somewhere, across an ocean, the rest of their friends have grown up. They sit a bigger table with partners and dates. They talk about children and mortgages and Conor pictures Ned at that table because that’s where he should be. He shouldn’t be here, with them, these three who haven’t grown up like the rest. 

When you get older, there becomes less to dream about. Time runs out. He no longer dreams about a house with a white picket fence, and Ned, and a dog and a couple of kids in the garden. He feels too old for that. 

He  _ knows  _ that the way he lives his life is okay. It works for Liv, it works for Dom, but it’s so far from working for Conor. 

He pretends, he laughs while he slices into his steak. Let’s Liv and Dom talk shit about their bosses. All in all, it’s a good night, he’s in bed by 9, ready to wake up early and head to the stadium. 

A car picks him and Ned up in the morning, the team will have a shuttle from the village. Neither one of them speaks to the other. Ned finds his spot with the other sponsors and Conor turns down the hallway to the locker rooms. He can hear the Japanese team getting ready. He can also hear Liv pumping up her own team. When he walks in, she’s jumping, waving her arms and screaming. There’s an iPad in the corner of the room and Conor can see Abie’s kids smiling through the screen. He wonders how Liv even thinks up these intensely personal touches. 

Conor’s part equipment manager, part assistant coach, part cheerleader. He’s spent the last year doing whatever Liv needed him to do, and right now, that’s handing out the newly washed jerseys. He tries not to study the patch on the shorts too intently but it has Ned’s fingerprints all over it. The clean lines, the attention to detail, it was so quintessentially Ned that it almost felt like he was in the room with them.

Ned loves him, and he loves Ned. Still, after everything but Conor can’t let Ned know. It would ruin something, he doesn’t know exactly what but it would. 

Conor is standing with his arms crossed behind the bench. Ned has a clear view from the sponsors box. He tries to look elsewhere, but it’s just Conor. Him. There’s a rugby match happening in front of him, but he’d rather watch Conor shout from behind the bench. Gruff and terse, pacing meaningfully back and forth. Occasionally his eyes wander to Liv on the field but it’s Conor who has and will almost definitely have his attention. 

The seat next to him is where Dom usually sits but it’s empty right now, he’s training for the match after this one. It’s not that he’s not jumping and screaming in his seat when they win, it’s that he’s watching Conor and watching Conor explode in joy is more gratifying than anything else he could imagine. 

The team plays a game every day for the next three days and every night, Ned ends up in Conor’s bedroom. There’s so much they need to talk about but they don’t do much talking anymore. 

_ “Casual’s good right?”  _ Ned wants to go back in time and punch himself for saying that. 

Casual  _ feels  _ good, for a few minutes at least. Of fucking course sex is good especially when it’s with someone who already knows what you want. Most of it at least. 

They could talk, easily, in the time between finishing and slinking back to his own room, but they don’t. Sometimes Ned tells Conor how good the game was. 

The night before their last game in the group round, Ned’s straddling Conor’s leg. Conor’s trailing kisses along his neck, moving down his bare chest. He won’t let himself think about the fact that he’s being so gently, that he always takes his time, seems like a man in love. He doesn’t think about the fact that just a few days ago Conor as much as told Ned he was still in love with him. 

“You always look so good on the field,” Ned mutters into Conor’s ear. 

He sees the blush go up Conor’s neck. 

“So focused, tough, makes me look forward to this.”

He’d do anything to keep Conor underneath of him, to be able to keep tracing the seams of his shirt. Anything except the whole talking thing. Anything except the whole relationship thing. Conor broke up with him because he was distracting. Conor said it was his fault but Ned internalized something along the way, that Conor didn’t want him following his career around the world. That he didn’t want him anymore. And that’s how most relationships went isn’t it? Love exists, he figured that out but it’s fleeting, brief. He couldn’t expect Conor to love him for his entire life, could he?

Now he gets to touch Conor, gently. To say “I love you” without actually saying it. Then he’ll go back to his room, they’ll both fall asleep and they won’t have to deal with the implications of what they’ve just done because. 

_ Casual, right? _ He’s such a fucking idiot. 

“We’re into the quarter-finals whether we win or not,” Conor says. 

“Be nice to win though,” Ned sweeps Conor’s hair out of his eyes, he’s perpetually in need of a haircut. 

“Yeah. But this is more than we expected.”

“I know you, you’re never happy if you think you could have done more.”

Ned notices the sadness welling behind Conor’s eyes so he quickly bears down, kissing into Conor’s mouth. Conor grunts and pushes back. 

When Ned showers before bed he does it beside an empty room, when he goes to sleep, one side of the bed is cold. 

Just because you want something, just because you think about it really hard, doesn’t mean it’s something you should get. 

The team is playing the Canadians and everything goes exactly as it had the day before. Conor feels almost as if he’s living life on repeat. 

The Canadians are bigger, and faster. They’ve had more time to train professionally. They don’t have to work jobs between practices like Conor’s team does. To fight so hard, and come up against a loss, it’s discouraging to say the least. 

Conor doesn’t get how Olivia can turn from player to coach so quickly, to take her frustration and tell the team to keep their heads up and focus on the quarter final instead of the loss.

“We have two days off, so tonight, we party!” She says. 

She strips off her shirt and whoops and Conor takes it as his cue to leave.

Ned’s in the hallway outside talking to someone Conor’s never met, she’s short with long dark hair and tan skin. She’s wearing a track suit with the Canadian maple leaf on the shoulder. They’re laughing. 

“Conor!” Ned says smiling, “This is Aryn!”

Conor holds out his hand. 

“We hung out all the time when I was working in Toronto.”

“I didn’t even know that you…”

Conor hates it when he remembers just how much of each other’s lives they’ve missed out on. 

“Aryn does social media, she’s doing it for the whole Canadian team now.”

“Cool!” Conor says, pretending he knows what he means by ‘does social media’

“Uh-” Conor stammers, “Well the team’s gonna go get drinks after this, if you guys wanted to hang around unless you have something better to do.”

Aryn pipes up, “That’d be sweet, cool,” she says. 

So Conor stands awkwardly beside them waiting for the team as they chat and reminisce. 

And he can’t help but notice how relaxed Ned’s shoulders are, how he’s so comfortable with a casual touch, a squeeze of her shoulder. How he tells a joke and she rests her head on his shoulder to laugh at him. And Conor knows that if he jumped in the conversation it would be fine but he doesn’t think he should. Can’t make himself join in on the joke. So he looks at his phone, reads an e-mail that he’s already answered, pretending that he hasn’t seen it before. 

Then Liv walks out and Conor forces a smile. Her’s isn’t as bright as it s after a win but he can tell she’s trying to be in good spirits. 

“Let’s get plastered,” she says. 

Ned breaks into a grin. 

The introductions are quick. Liv does her usually funny/flirty/charming thing with Aryn. It’s been long enough that Conor recognizes it. Their at a bar somewhere downtown, Conor didn’t really care to ask and directions have never been his strong suit but Aryn and Ned seem to know where they’re going. Conor supposes they might, Ned’s been everywhere by now. 

It’s the kind of place with mason jars for drinking glasses and exposed brick walls. Conor orders a drink and sits next to Dom, who’s been persuaded to come hang out for a little while despite the match in the morning. 

“You ready?” Conor asks. 

“If I’m not, there’s nothing to be done about it now,” he’s sipping something non-alcoholic. 

Conor takes a larger sip of his beer and nods. 

Aryn and Ned are at the other end of the bar, drinking a cocktail that Conor wouldn’t be able to pick off a menu. Always fucking laughing at jokes Conor wouldn’t get because he wasn’t there when they made them up. 

“Jealous?” Dom raises his eyebrow. 

“Fuck off,” Conor rolls his eyes. 

“I’ll take that as a yes then.”

“Does she have to laugh so much.”

“Maybe he’s just funny.”

Conor just shrugs, “D’you think they… y’know?”

“Hooked up?” Dom supplies. 

Conor shrugs again. 

Dom studies them. 

“Maybe. But they seem friendly now. What’s it matter to you?”

“Dunno,” Conor says. 

“Sure.”

“I don’t know what you think you’re saying.”

“I am the world’s leading expert in pining for someone who doesn’t want you back,” Dom jerks his head toward Liv. 

“S’different,” Conor says. 

“How?”

He’s glad no one can hear them, that the music is loud enough, the team is far enough away. He still mumbles. 

“It just is.”

“I mean aside from the obvious.”

“What if he does still want… this is stupid.”

“Yeah because you  _ are  _ fucking stupid. What do you mean, did he say?”

“I don’t know why the hell I’m talking to you.”

“Because Liv’s chatting up a waitress and I’m your only other friend.”

“We’ve been hooking up.”

“What like fuckbuddies?”

“Keep your fucking voice down, but yes.”

“Don’t you have specific instructions from the federation not to be too much of a slut this trip?”

It’s a joke, Conor still punches him. 

“Sensitive,” Dom chides. 

“I don’t want to make you talk about my sex life, we can talk about anything else.”

“You’re not making me do anything. Olivia Hines is my best friend. She once made me identify the clitoris on a drawing because she didn’t believe I could.”

“And could you?”

“Not the fucking point, Conor. If you’re just hooking up, why does it have to be a big deal?”

Conor sighs, “He was leaving one night and he might have said…”

“Jesus finish a sentence.”

Conor steals a glance at Ned and Aryn. She would be good for him. The right kind of person. 

“That he loved me,” Conor mumbles. 

Dom stifles a laugh. 

“You two really are the most dramatic motherfuckers on the planet.”

“He didn’t know I was awake to hear it.”

“I fucking hate you. Just tell him you heard, it’s not that hard.”

“I don’t want to throw anything off and I broke up with him. It’s just a mess.”

“Sounds like you’re just making it bigger.”

“Can we talk about football or something.”

“Yeah, fine.”

Dom leaves before they head to a club along with Abie. Liv knows someone who knows someone who knows she’s an Olympian so they get in ahead of the line. Niamh headed home with Abie because she knew her fake ID wouldn’t work here. Ned and Aryn pull each other to the dance floor while Conor heads straight for the bar. Liv stands next to the wall whispering something in Erin’s ear that makes her laugh. The way Aryn dances with Ned isn’t dirty, but it’s not exactly PG either, swaying her hips, playing with her hair. Jo and Margie are fully grinding against a pair of twenty-something guys. 

So Conor just keeps drinking. Someone tries to chat him up but he doesn’t have the energy. He doesn’t have the desire to go home either. Soon he realizes that Liv left with Erin and Ned left with Aryn (Fuck that’s confusing) and only Jo and Margie remain, the partying abilities of a uni student should not be underestimated. He settles his tab realizing just how much he’s had to drink when he throws down a tip. 

He walks. It’s chilly and it sobers him up. By the time he’s back at the hotel, he’s thrown up in the street and lost his tie. He flops into his bed without doing anything else. He expects to pass out, but he’s restless, tossing and turning. He changes out of his slacks and dress shirt into a pair of checkered pajama pants and a hoodie thinking that will help. It doesn’t. He washes his face thinking that will help. It doesn’t. There’s still vodka and soda in his system when he sends the text.

“U up?”

He knows Ned’s up, he heard him pacing around his room ten minutes ago. Still. 

“Yeah, come over,” his phone buzzes with the answer.

Conor doesn’t grab anything, he just gets up, still in his pajamas and walks 3 feet between doors. He knocks. Ned’s still in his work clothes that he hadn’t changed out of before hitting the club. and he’s on edge, practically vibrating. His phone is in one hand, a piece of paper in the other. He sets down the paper and invites Conor in. 

“You seem busy, I can leave, we don’t have to”

“No!” Ned says quickly, his face breaks into a soft smile, “It’s good to see a friend. I’ve been working pretty much since I got back so uh… yeah. Time for a break.”

He puts his phone and papers on the table. The room is as messy as Conor would have expected. His clothes are spilling out of a suitcase on the floor, not quite unpacked yet. His laptop is on the desk

“Thought Aryn would have come back with you.”

“She’s staying here too, so we walked together,” Ned shrugs. 

“She’s nice. I see why you like her.”

“A good friend,” Ned emphasizes the last word of the sentence. 

Conor nods. 

“How much did you drink anyway?”

“A fair bit. I puked on the way home so most of it’s gone,” he supplies more readily than he wants. 

Ned just nods.

“Can we go somewhere. It’s just… if I have to look at work I might go insane.”

“Oh, yeah, for sure.”

“Have you been to the pool on the roof yet?”

“I didn’t even know that existed. 

“It’s nice,” Ned says. 

“Let’s go.”

It’s brighter on the roof than Conor expected. The lights of the city surround them and the sky is bluer than black. No stars through the smog. It’s beautiful in a different sort of way. 

It’s empty, they’re the only two stupid enough to shuffle to the elevator at three in the morning. 

Ned leans over the railing and looks down. Conor stands behind him. Awkwardness and being tipsy don’t pair well. They don’t swim but the way the light of the pool reflects against Ned’s skin as they stand there is almost tantalizing. 

“I don’t want to talk about work. You don’t want to talk about rugby. What the hell do we talk about?” Ned finally says. 

Conor looks helplessly forward, “I don’t know. I don’t do much else.”

“That’s fucking sad,”

“Yeah,” Conor says, shoves his hands in his pockets. 

He remembers what Dom says, what Arthur said. Doesn’t have the words or the guts to do anything about it. 

“Aryn’s great but she’s always working even when we were-”

“Dating?”

“I was going to say living together but I guess maybe we dated for a while.”

“Right, sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

“It’s fine. She’s just always on, y’know?”

Conor nods. Remembers Liv scolding him for long nights spent in their office. 

“Me too, I guess.”

“You didn’t used to be like that.”

“Well. Shit got hard, I guess.”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah.”

“Fuck,” Ned says. 

Conor looks at him, surprised. 

“We aren’t actually saying anything, are we?”

Conor shakes his head. 

“I miss when I could know what you were thinking. Or when you always told me at least.”

“I think I miss that too,” Conor says.

“I didn’t think you would.”

Their breakup was so chill it’s almost funny how Ned agreed with him when he said they needed to stop. 

“I uh-” Conor doesn’t know what to say. 

Ned’s facing him but he’s so far away. He feels so far away. He wants to hold his hand. One kiss that didn’t have to be followed by sex to cover up their feelings. One whispered  _ i love you _ . 

“Do you remember what you said to me after I walked you home from that party?”

Conor shakes his head, because he doesn’t. 

“No. But I did hear you when you left my room the first time we had sex at the hotel.”

“Shit,” Ned says.

“What did I say,” Conor feels like he’s swallowing sandpaper.

“You said uh. You said that thought you could still love me.”

“Shit, yeah,” Conor says. 

“So uh.”

“I don’t want you to drop everything for me. Fuck man, I broke up with you. You shouldn’t love me.”

“Why does it always come back to that? It’s like you try to ruin every good thing you have?” An edge creeps into Ned’s voice. 

“Because I don’t deserve good things.”

Ned sighs, “Please believe that you do.”

“Just because I want something doesn’t mean I should have it.”

“What if I want it too.”

“Ned please. You deserve better.”

Ned reaches out and it takes everything in Conor not to run. 

“You breaking up with me didn’t break my heart, Conor. Because I thought it was what you needed. That it was good for you and me. But… it just doesn’t feel like that anymore. It breaks my heart because you push and you push until it’s just you, totally alone.”

“You’re still so beautiful,” is all Conor has to say. 

“Please just kiss me.”

Conor takes a step forward, looks down at Ned’s lips and licks his own. Ned does the rest, tilting his face upward to get a good angle. 

Conor takes a shaky breath because there’s no hidden  _ I love you  _ this one is different. It’s there and it’s sad. 

“Can we please talk,” Ned says, “For real now.”

Conor nods and they sit down on the bench by the edge of the roof. The railing is made of glass so they can see the street below them. Ned crosses his legs and looks at Conor like he’s afraid he might run away. 

“I miss you,” Ned finally says, “And I hate that I do because it’s been three years which means that we were together for almost seven and how can I possibly still be unhappy about that? How is it still weird waking up alone?”

“You think it’s weird too?”

Ned nods, “I’m angry at you and I’m sad for you and I’m so fucking proud of you and Liv and I don’t know how I’m all those things at the same time and I can’t figure out if it’s because you were my first love or because you were meant to be my only love- fuck. None of it makes sense.”

Conor as always, comes up with absolutely nothing to say. 

“I’m sorry,” he mumbles. 

“Yeah,” Ned says, “Me too.”

“You have nothing to be sorry for.”

Ned shakes his head, “That’s not true.”

“I broke up with you.”

“I think I stopped trying a long time before we broke up. That last month, we were living together but it didn’t feel like it anymore.”

“That was my fault. I was too busy all the time.”

“I think you had a right to be busy with the  _ Olympics _ .”

“I didn’t want you to have to wait around for me. I thought you deserved better.”

Ned sighs. 

“Y’know Aryn would be-” Conor starts. 

“Aryn’s not you,” Ned says sadly. 

And Conor wants to cry because how could he have fucked up so badly for both of them. And it’s like Ned reads his mind. 

“Please stop going through life thinking everything was your fault.  _ We  _ broke up.”

“I keep feeling like I’ve made a mistake,” Conor says. 

Ned nods, “We’re never going to be seventeen again.” 

Conor looks down at his hands.

“Aryn’s amazing, but we didn’t work because I couldn’t shut the fuck up about you. She’s really smart, she told me one time that I was expecting everything to stay the same after we left Woodhill and when it didn’t neither one of us knew how to deal with it.”

Conor nods again, “I ran into Mr. Sherry and Arthur.”

“Where the hell did you see them?”

“I was in a club. They kind of saved me. But y’know… kind of made me realize how I still picture the future with you in it.”

It’s Conor’s turn to talk so Ned stays quiet now. 

“But that’s just not fair! You were giving me more than I could give back.”

“That’s not true.”

“It is. All my energy went to rugby, to the team. I came home and we barely talked because I was so tired. And you still loved me.”

Ned nods, “Yeah. I did. Because I loved you. Because I knew you needed it. I was willing to wait. I didn’t think being in love with you was going to be easy.”

“That wasn’t fair to you.”

“Conor,” Ned sighs, “I don’t think the Olympics were what broke us. We stopped talking. We just assumed everything about each other.”

There’s a long pause as Conor remembers the years they spent together. How he thought he didn’t need to ask and so they didn’t. Where they thought they were in tune with each other, perfectly in-step. And how that all came crashing down. How Conor wanted Ned to say no, to refuse to break up, but how he agreed. How Conor thought he knew what Ned wanted but that couldn’t have been further from the truth. 

“We’ll never be seventeen again,” Conor repeats Ned. 

Ned nods. 

Conor realizes that there are tears in his eyes, wipes them away quickly. Ned puts his hand on top of Conor’s and sighs. Conor sees the tears in Ned’s eyes and his own tears come rushing back. 

“Fuck,” he laughs wiping away the tears that don’t stop. 

Ned laughs too, leans forward, resting his head on Conor’s shoulder. 

“I used to daydream about what everything was going to be like by now,” Conor admits. 

“Yeah,” Ned takes a shaky breath. 

“I just want that back. Being seventeen and being able to imagine the future. Some kind of fucked up idealism where nothing was ever wrong and we had a garden and a football and a kid and we never fought. But this is the future and now I don’t know what to imagine.”

Ned’s shaking with sobs now and Conor can’t help but do the same. There’s snot running down his face and Ned sniffs loudly into his shoulder but he really doesn’t mind. This feels more intimate than anything they’ve done over the past week. 

“Why were we so dumb?” Ned asks.

“We’re still pretty dumb.”

“Can we be dumb together?” Ned says. 

Conor nods furiously against Ned’s dress shirt. 

“I don’t want you to have to-”

“Shhh,” Ned says, “We can worry later, right now I just want to kiss you.”

Ned pulls his head back and wipes the tears from the side of Conor’s face with his thumbs, Conor wipes his nose with his hoodie and laughs. Ned kisses him and they’re still laughing. It’s not sexy, it’s not urgent. It’s gentle and sweet and Conor leans into it. 

“We’re gonna try,” Ned says. 

Conor nods, “I want to stop worrying about what I didn’t do and start worrying about what I’m gonna do.”

“I just want you to stop worrying.”

They laugh and laugh and Ned strips off his clothes and swan dives into the pool. Conor strips down to his boxers and jumps in after him and they laugh again. Ned, good Ned. Ned who is too forgiving, Ned who refuses to let Conor shoulder all of the blame and he’s back here he started. Half naked splashing Conor. And he misses it so much. 

Being seventeen. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I welcome thoughts! Even if you don't like it. I get it if you don't, I broke up the soulmates and made them sad, that's annoying but I feel like it's important for things not to go exactly the way they thought they would


	6. Kiss me and crucify

Conor wakes up the morning of the semi-final and Ned’s already staring at him. The thin white sheet wrapped around the pair is enough to keep them comfortable in the hot Los Angeles summer. 

“Hi,” Ned smiles. 

“Hi,” Conor says. For the first time in a long time, the other side of the bed is warm. 

It feels safe, just the two of them. They’ll tell people, their friends will figure out that they’re back together if no one tells them, but for now, they’re the only two people on the planet who know. 

“I’ll get coffee,” Ned says, swinging his legs over the side of the bed and pulling on a pair of sweatpants. He pulls Conor’s hoodie on. 

Conor would be lying if he said he didn’t love the way his clothes swallow Ned. Conor nods, still wiping the sleep out of his eyes. He squints past the light streaming in the glass balcony doors and looks at Ned. 

“I’ll be here when you get back.”

“Okay,” Ned kisses the top of his head before grabbing his wallet and slipping out the door.

The hotel lock clicks behind him. Conor sighs, he sits up, looking at the spot in the bed where Ned had been. The papers that were strewn across the room last night are stacked neatly now, Conor can’t remember when Ned had time to do that. He rolls over, untangling himself from the sheets. He pulls on a pair of boxer shorts and sits at the edge of the bed. 

The room is disorganized in the same way that Ned’s always been. Conor wouldn’t be able to figure out any of it, but it makes complete sense to Ned. It’s one of the things that started to drive him crazy when they lived together, but now that it’s gone he misses it. 

The door clicks open and Conor’s still sitting on the edge of the bed. Ned’s holding two brown coffee cups. 

“I don’t know if you still take it black, but there’s cream and sugar in my pocket if you don’t.”

“No. It’s perfect. Thanks for remembering,” Conor says. 

“Course,” Ned says. 

“Nice morning if you wanna sit outside,” Conor shrugs towards the balcony. 

Ned nods. 

They’re at least 10 storeys up and the railings are made of glass. The smog settles over the city like the clouds back home. They each take a spot in one of the deck chairs. Ned curls his legs underneath of himself and takes a sip of what Conor knows is more cream and sugar than coffee.

“We talked more then.”

“When?” Conor asks. 

“When we were 17. About things that really mattered. I told you about my mom. I never told anyone else how I felt about that. Now it’s just you and a therapist.”

Conor smiles to himself, nods, “I remember.”

“You never asked either, not like everyone else did anyway. You never made it a big deal. It was just a thing like anything else.”

“When did we stop talking?” Conor asks. 

Ned shrugs, “Hard to say. But once we stopped I didn’t know how to start again.”

“Me either.”

“Maybe if we’d talked about the whole breaking up thing, it would have been different.”

“I think I was kind of hoping you wouldn’t go.”

“I thought that’s what you wanted. A career. I was distracting.”

Conor shakes his head, “You were my boyfriend.”

“Guess I thought you’d move on quicker. I always secretly thought you’d be happier with someone who got it.”

“Wish you would have told me so I could’ve told you how wrong you were. I’ve been fucking miserable.”

Ned manages a small chuckle.

“I wish I’d had the stones to tell you.”

“You know I thought you’d be happier if you didn’t have to put up with me. I said it was the rugby, but really I meant me. I didn’t want to pull you down with me. 

“Fuck,” Ned sighs. 

“Yeah.”

“I uh. I guess I thought maybe it wasn’t meant to be since you were the first person who ever showed an interest in me, but I’ve tried. No one’s made me feel the same way since you. I’ve been on a lot of bad dates.”

“I’ve been to a lot of bad clubs.”

Ned’s frown deepens, “I guess neither of us got what we thought would happen.”

Conor shakes his head. 

Ned laughs, dry and like he can’t help it. 

“I don’t know if I can do this again,” Ned says, “I’m sore.”

Conor nods, “Yeah.”

“What did I say when we were kids though? Love is hard and it hurts as much as it heals? I still love you,” Ned says. 

“You always were kind of a poet.”

“Yeah, I’m uh- I’m working on something like that, actually.”

“I’m proud of you.”

“You always hated poetry.”

“I never hated you,” Conor says. 

Ned’s looking down at his coffee cup, he smiles softly.

“I still love you. But you knew that.”

Ned nods. 

Conor clears his throat. 

“Fuck,” Conor says, “Bad timing, huh? Semi-final tonight, you’re writing a fucking book. How do we deal with this?”

“Get a guitar?” Ned suggests with a light smile. 

Conor laughs. 

“We could. We’re in LA. Can’t be hard to find a music store.”

“Okay, let’s do it.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

So Conor heads back to his own room to get dressed. He does everything quickly before reappearing in the hallway, there’s no time to change his mind this way. Ned’s already waiting for him, still wearing Conor’s hoodie, over a pair of dark jeans now, 

“Don’t think I ever told you how much I liked it when you stole my clothes.”

Ned raises turns pink around the ears, puts his hand in his pocket and smiles. 

“D’you still talk to the team?” Ned asks as they cross the street. 

Conor shakes his head, “Dom still, but that’s just proximity.”

“That game we came to in the spring was the first time I’d seen them in years.”

“Shit, huh?”

“Why didn’t you?”

“I guess I felt like they were all growing up faster than I was. We didn’t have as much in common anymore after uni.”

“Me too I guess. Maybe they always felt more like your friends, and I was allowed to tag along.”

“You know that’s not true right.”

“I know it but I don’t  _ know  _ it.”

Conor reflexively slips his hand into Ned’s and squeezes. 

“You don’t have to… Don’t have to hold my hand when we’re out. I know they said they didn’t want… pictures and you never wanted to be-”

Conor squeezes Ned’s hand harder and silences him with a kiss. 

“I want to hold your hand if you’ll let me.”

“‘Course I’ll let you.”

“I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“That I stopped holding your hand in uni. That I never corrected the papers when they said I was a  _ notorious bachelor. _ ”

“I never blamed you for that stuff.”

“Maybe you should’ve. Because maybe if I’d been okay with myself I wouldn’t have been so scared they’d make me one of the  _ gay  _ Olympians instead of just myself. 

“It’s not your fault that the world’s not fair.”

“I wish I was brave.”

“You are, stupid,” Ned shoves at him with his shoulder. 

“I was a lot braver when we were kids.”

“I think everyone was.”

“You’re still pretty brave.”

“I was an anarchist when we were seventeen. Now I wear dress shirts to work.”

Conor laughs through his nose, “I guess.”

There’s a piano in the middle of the music store. Ned’s fingers graze the keys as they pass, playing a sweet melody. 

“I didn’t know you could do that.”

“Aryn’s really good. She taught me a little bit.”

Conor can’t help imagining Ned and Aryn sitting at a piano, shoulders knocking into each other, laughing, kissing. Conor shakes his head. 

“Does that… bother you.”

Conor shakes his head again, “No, not like that. I just miss doing things with you.”

“Aryn’s a good friend, Conor. Terrible girlfriend.”

“You don’t need to try to make me feel better. It’s not your fault I wasn’t there.”

There are people in the store but Conor doesn’t mind when Ned plants a little kiss on his face. 

“Guitars,” Ned points at a display. 

“Do you still have your old one?” Conor asks. 

Ned shakes his head, “It’s in my dad’s attic somewhere.”

“This machine kills fascists, you could play a chord and you thought you were Woody Guthrie.”

“Shut up.”

They decide that they only need one, they both throw down some cash and carry it a few blocks back to the hotel. There are always people buzzing around in the streets. Conor doesn’t slip his hand into Ned’s now that the cameras and the fans have come out for the morning events. Ned and Conor are practically grinning as they ride the elevator back to Ned’s room. It’s something so entirely stupid to say  _ I want to play guitar _ and then be able to go out and buy a guitar. 

The guitar sits on the bed for a moment as Ned pins Conor against the bathroom door, kisses him gentle and calm. Conor closes his eyes takes a deep breath in. 

“Play something for me,” Conor exhales. 

Ned nods, smiling into the kiss. He sits at the edge of the bed with the guitar in his lap and plays with the tuning strings. Conor leans against the wall at the foot of the bed, just smiling. 

“You’re staring,” Ned says without looking up. 

“Yeah,” Conor says, “Should I stop.”

Ned smiles and shakes his head laughing. 

“What time do you have to leave?” Ned says, he picks at one of the strings and looks up at Conor. 

“The game’s at 6.”

“Practice?”

“I have to be gone by 3. But right now I’m all yours.”

He stands in front of Ned, kisses him on the forehead. Ned moves the guitar out of the way and pulls Conor down on top of him. 

“So we’re really doing this again?” Conor says. 

“We can take it slow. We don’t have to jump right back in where we left off.”

Conor nods, “That’s probably smart.”

“For now though, just fucking kiss me.”

“I was about to. Be patient.”

“Are you gonna make me beg,” Ned raises an eyebrow. 

Ned’s body is pressed against Conor’s a few hours later. The sheets are soft in the way that hotel sheets only ever are. He takes in the smell of his shampoo, the same kind he’s been using since they were teenagers. Conor kisses the back of his head. Ned presses himself closer to Conor’s body. Conor pulls on a pair of sweatpants and climbs back into bed. 

“You’re warm,” Conor mutters. 

“You too,” Ned says. 

“I think that’s just the sun,” Conor mumbles.

“Maybe a little,” Ned admits, “You have to get dressed.”

“Do I? I just want to stay.”

“Me having to kick you out of bed is new. I used to have to beg you to stay.”

“Maybe I should have stayed more often.”

“Shut up, I love you. That includes your insane urge to run at six a.m.”

Ned presses his foot to Conor’s back and shoves him out of bed. 

“Come on, go,” he says with a grin on his face. 

“Alright, alright,” Conor relents. 

“I’ll see you in a few hours,” Ned says as Conor slips out the door. 

He’s late, Liv doesn’t mind.

“Sorry,” he says as he slips into the locker room before their practice. 

Liv shrugs, he’s pretty sure she winks at him. 

Conor knows somewhere deep inside of him that they haven’t got a chance against the New Zealand team. They’re the favourites for gold and making it this far was more than anyone really expected. He’s sure Liv knows this, but they can’t say this in front of the players. He sits in the stands watching Liv take the team through their briefing. She has a little whiteboard in her hands as she explains the different things that might happen. She has them gather around a laptop and watch the New Zealand team’s best plays. Conor wanders down when he’s needed, but for the most part, he just sits. 

Ned shows up, unexpectedly and with a tray of coffee in his hands.

There are four cups, Conor recognizes his order, and he recognizes Liv’s. 

“Four?” He asks as he grabs his own coffee. 

“Aryn’s around.”

“I hope she’s not spying.”

He shakes his head, “She knows fuck all about rugby even if she was.”

Conor quickly kisses Ned’s cheek, keeping his attention on the field. 

“How you feeling?” Ned asks. 

Conor shrugs, “I think I’m being realistic about their chances.” He doesn’t realize he’s biting his thumb. 

“Do you remember the first time you asked me to come to one of your games.”

“You said it wasn’t your team.”

Ned smiles to himself, it’s as sad a smile as Conor’s ever seen. 

“Don’t apologize for things that happened ten years ago. You were the only person who knew where to find me. You showed up when it mattered. You’re here now.”

Conor squeezes Ned’s thigh, gives him a reassuring smile and drinks his coffee. The team leaves the field and Ned stands up.

“Aryn’s around, gotta give this to her,” Ned holds up the coffee.

“I’ll come with you,” COnor volunteers. 

“Okay.”

They find her in the restaurant at the athlete’s village staring at her phone the way someone else would stare at a laptop. Ned hands over the coffee.

“Thanks,” Aryn says, she doesn’t look up from her work. 

“Lunch?” Ned asks. 

Conor nods. 

“What was she doing?” Conor asks. 

“She runs the twitter for the Canadian Olympic team. I’m quite proud of her actually. When we lived together she was still in school. She’ll be able to get any job she wants after this.”

“I didn’t even realize that was a job.”

“It’s a pretty cool one. Hard for her to shut it off though. Always on call.”

Conor nods. 

They sit down across from Aryn with their plates of pasta.

“Sorry if I was rude earlier. The prime minister retweeted something from the account and I had to make sure we responded.”

Conor nods, “Wow. Yeah. Seems stressful. Good job though?”

“I love it,” she says, “It’s a contract though. I’ll be out of work in a week.”

Ned laughs, “Nature of the beast. Someone’ll hire you full time after this. They’d be dumb not to.”

“So is it sports you’re into?” Conor asks. 

Aryn nods, “I’ll admit rugby’s out of my depth. But I’ve always wanted to work in social media. The dream job’s to run socials for an ice hockey team somewhere.”

“Oh yeah. Guess that’s a big deal in Canada.”

Aryn laughs, she sweeps her hair out of her face and pulls it into a low ponytail, she has a habit of playing with the silver septum ring in her nose. Ned gets up to go to the bathroom a few moments later and Aryn puts her phone down. 

“Are you back together?” She asks. 

Conor nods. 

“He looks happy.”

“I hope,” Conor says. 

“He does,” Aryn’s voice is stern, “Just. Please don’t hurt him. He was a fucking mess for months after he moved in with me. I thought he needed a rebound but he really just needed you.”

Conor swallows, “It was a mistake to end it in the first place.”

“I never said that,” she says. 

“So what are you saying?”

“I’m happy for you,” she says. 

Ned returns and Conor has no more time to wonder what she wants to say to him. 

The stadium is packed. Everyone loves New Zealand, everyone loves the narrative of the Irish underdogs. Conor’s behind the bench at the start. He can see Ned’s red hair in the crowd. He’s glad that he didn’t change it. 

The girls fall behind quickly. New Zealand is structurally so much better than they are. They’re never anywhere they’re not supposed to be. And Conor’s not as upset as he thought he’d be. Maybe it’s because he can’t blame the girls, because he’s on the outside looking in and he can see how hard they’re going. Ned meets him in the hallway by the locker rooms. He kisses him,Conor can’t see anyone around. They duck behind a rack of jerseys.

“You seem surprsingly calm for someone who’s losing.”

“It’s my team. I can’t blame them for doing the best they can with what they have. It’s out of my hands now.”

“You’re so sexy when you demonstrate growth and personal development,” Ned presses a kiss to Conor’s neck. 

“Now is definitely not the time,” Conor warns, only half meaning it. 

“Then why is your hand still on my back?” Ned smirks.

He slips his hands under the back of Ned’s shirt. Kisses him again, tries to pull away but pushes himself back against Ned. 

“Okay, to be continued,” Ned says, puts his hand on Conor’s chest and smiles. 

Conor nods, puts his hair back into place.

They lose, because of course they do. But Conor’s proud of them anyway. 

“You scored twice. That’s more than a lot of teams can do against them,” Conor says as he walks through the room. Niamh shakes her head, Conor can see her beating herself up. 

“Niamh,” he says quietly as he passes her, “There was nothing else you could do. All you can do now is get ready for the bronze medal game.”

“I should’ve had that last tackle.”

“Then what would have happened? They would have scored on the next play.”

“I should’ve had that one too then.”

Conor puts his hand on Niamh’s shoulder. 

“Losing’s part of the game.”

Liv changes fastest, meets Conor by the door. 

“Do you know who we play on Saturday.”

“Canada,” she answers brusquely, “They just lost to GB.”

Conor wanders out into the hallway. He sees Aryn and Ned walking towards him and Liv. Liv breaks out into a smirk. 

“You’re the enemy now, come to spy on us?” Liv laughs. 

Aryn’s brow remains furrowed. 

“We’ve got a bigger problem,” she says, “You’re trending,” she points at Conor. 

“I’m what?” He says. 

“On twitter.”

“For what.”

“It’s fucking bullshit,” she mutters. 

Ned’s face is bright red, Conor sees something he’s never seen on Ned’s face before. Fear. 

Aryn holds out a picture. It’s blurry and it’s a little grainy but it’s clearly him and Ned. Kissing. Behind the rack. Whoever took the picture went out of their way to make it look as dirty as possible. It’s been reposted and retweeted hundreds of times. 

“Take it down,” Conor says. 

“I can’t,” Aryn shakes her head and she looks genuinely sorry, “We don’t know who took it. You can’t take something like this down. If it helps, most people are tweeting support.”

“It fucking doesn’t.” 

Conor doesn’t know where he’s going, but he turns, and he’s going fast. He hears Ned calling for him but he can’t force himself to turn back into the stadium once the air hits his lungs. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you didn't think they'd have it easy? did you?


	7. stop for a minute

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s like being outed all over again.

In the time between the end of the first half and the start of the second, Conor had kissed Ned. In between the end of the intermission and the start of the second half, someone had posted a picture of it online And in between the start of the first half and the end of the game, it had been retweeted 435 thousand times. The original account took down the picture but it was too late. After a brief hunt for his identity, an Irish rugby fan tweeted that they recognized him and then the news really took off. It had been reposted to news sites, twitter accounts dedicated to gay news. There were people wondering who Ned was. It didn’t seem like anyone had figured it out yet, but Ned’s boss definitely new, Everyone who knew them had to know by now. 

It’s like being outed all over again. It  _ is  _ being outed all over again but this time he’s in a strange city. This time the air falls heavy and humid and everything smells like petrol.And he can hear someone somewhere shouting and he’s not sure if it’s for him. 

He just walks. Pulls off his tie and shoves it in his pocket. Can’t stand the feeling of being strangled anymore. If he knew how to get home, he’d go there. He doesn’t know where home is anymore anyway. His phone’s buzzing in his pocket. Liv. Liv. Erin. Liv. Dom. Victor. Liv. Irish Rugby. Dom. Liv. 

_ Ned.  _

The contact photo is from when they were still dating. Ned, with a chopstick balanced on top of his lip, laughing, not knowing Conor was taking the picture. He couldn’t make himself get rid of it any more than he could get rid of Ned’s number. 

He stares at it one more time, forgets how to answer his phone. But Ned doesn’t hang up. It keeps buzzing in his hand. 

“Conor,” Ned says when he finally answers. Not calm, Conor can hear the panic in his voice. But it’s gentle. He’s not scolding Conor for running off. 

“Conor, are you there.”

Conor nods but then remembers he’s on the phone, “yes,” he says. 

“I don’t want you to be alone right now, can you get a car back to the hotel and I’ll meet you there?”

Conor nods again, “fuck,” he curses at himself, “Yeah, okay. Okay.”

“We’ll figure this out.”

Conor doesn’t believe him. He still doesn’t believe him when he gets in the car, when it drops him off, when he takes the elevator up to their floor. He sees Ned before anyone else. Feels like he’s floating. He knows it’s stupid to not want to touch him, afraid of who might see. It feels like everyone has seen.

He lets Ned stand against the door and sigh, he shakes his head. 

“They’re here,” Ned says simply as he opens the door. 

Liv’s leaning against the glass sliding door, beside Erin, the secretary, who’s refreshing her e-mail like her life depends on it. Dom’s sitting in the arm chair next to Liv, running his hands over a loose thread at the bottom of his shirt. Niamh is sitting on the arm of Dom’s chair and Aryn sits at the desk, laptop open, cell-phone on. She’s in absolute crisis mode trying to help. 

Conor doesn’t feel any of it. It doesn’t feel real, it’s not him. This isn’t his life. He’ll wake up if he digs his fingernails into his wrist hard enough. He feels blood. It’s real. 

Ned stands behind Aryn, she’s saying something. It’s all white noise to Conor as he sits down at the end of the bed. Housekeeping’s been by. The carpet is vacuumed. He can notice that. 

“I just can’t believe someone would… I mean why would they,” Dom wonders out loud. 

Liv just shrugs, stares further out the window. 

“I don’t know but I want to hit something.”

“I can assure that would not be a good look from a PR stand point,” Erin chimes in. 

“Shut up Erin,” Liv snaps. 

Aryn turns her head, Liv waves her hand as if to say “not you”

“I’m only trying to help,” her voice is small. 

Abie, who Conor has only just realized has been sitting in the other chair silently this whole time, puts her hand on Erin’s arm, “I know honey.”

“We’re never going to find out who posted this and there’s no way to un-post it. We can only control how we react.”

“The federation is asking that we deny it was Conor in the first place,” says Erin.

“Oh yeah totally, because he’s so unassuming. Anyone who’s looked at him for two seconds would know it’s him,” Dom says. 

“They don’t want it out that one of the coaches is involved with a sponsor,” Erin says, more calmly than the situation warrants. 

“Grow a fucking spine, Erin,” Liv spits. 

Erin shakes her head, “Don’t shoot the fucking messenger alright!”

“Oi! Quit it!” Dom puts himself in between them. 

Aryn turns around. 

“It’s possible. You can say it wasn’t you.” Aryn says, “We’ll put out a statement putting you in the dressing room. Act like we haven’t seen it. Ned’s out. We’ll say it was a different man.”

Niamh, who hasn’t spoken shakes her head, “Why would you do that?” Her voice is small and shaky. And Conor recognizes the look of pain, fear, hiding, in her eyes.

“Conor shouldn’t have to come out if he doesn’t want to,” Aryn says, dismissing her with a hand wave. “We can also focus on how intrusive it was. Not mention what the picture’s of. Just that it’s disgusting that somebody took it. That’s worked before. You don’t have to come out with a relationship.”

“Conor, they really are insisting…” Erin starts. 

“If you’re going to be a mouthpiece for the old men in charge you might as well just leave,” Liv says. 

And then everyone’s shouting and they’re shouting at each other about Conor and Conor doesn’t know how to interject. And then Niamh catches his eye. She shakes her head and stands up. Everyone falls silent as the door slams behind her. 

“Fuck,” Aryn mutters. 

Conor looks at Liv, then at Aryn, “Figure it out. I don’t fucking care.”

He follows Niamh, catches her before she gets on the elevator. 

He takes a small breath in, looks over at her. 

“You want a drink?” He asks.

“I’m 17.”

“Underage drinking with your coach is a right of passage.”

So he takes her to the bar, the sit in a booth in the back corner where no one can see them. The waitress doesn’t question why he orders a pitcher of lager. He pours two glasses and sighs. 

“You know I never knew you were gay,” she says. 

Conor shakes his head, “there wasn’t much to talk about until Ned showed up.”

“Knew he was gay though. That one was hard to miss.”

Conor laughs. She takes a sip of her beer. 

“Liv too. Everyone knows about Liv. Would have been nice to know about you. Not that you owe anyone anything. Just that it would have made some things easier.”

“I don’t want to jump to conclusions, but it sounds like you’re saying…”

“I called my mom after we landed. I thought being in a different country would give her time to process before we had to talk again. I thought  _ hey mom I’m at the Olympics  _ might soften the blow of  _ hey mom i’m gay _ ,”

Conor laughs, “Did it?”

She shakes her head, “She doesn’t believe me.”

“Shit,” Conor says, “why me though, Liv’s…”

“She’s loud and obnoxious and she doesn’t care what anyone thinks. I’m not like that. It didn’t feel like I could be out unless I was like her. But you were out. Just because the world didn’t know didn’t mean you weren’t.”

“I guess so.”

“You stick to yourself.”

Conor nods. He refills their glasses and sits back. 

“You think they’re yelling again yet?” He asks. 

“Absolutely,” She answers. 

Someone behind the bar turns the channel to a sports network. Conor’s face is plastered across the screen. 

“I can ask them to change it,”

He shakes his head. 

_ “Conor Masters is a retired rugby player from Ireland. His career…”  _ he listens to a woman list off his accolades before showing the photo of him and Ned,  _ “We’ve reached out to representatives from the Irish rugby team, currently sponsored by an anti-bullying charity. We’re just speculating here, but could the man in this picture be Conor Masters. Irish rugby fans all across Twitter insist it is. Conor would not be the first out member of the team Ireland coaching staff. Olivia Hines, hotshot player-coach sensation has been an out lesbian for the entirety of her career.” _

“Why does it even matter?” Niamh looks into her glass. 

Conor shrugs. 

“What do you want to happen?”

“I wanna play a rugby game.”

His phone buzzes on the table in front of him. 

_ Do you want to see the press release before Erin sends it?  _ It’s from Ned. 

“I couldn’t really care.”

_ Come back upstairs when they leave? We should talk.  _

“Ok.”

Niamh pulls up the statement on Twitter a few seconds later. 

_ The Irish Rugby Federation is aware that speculations are being made about one of our coaches’ personal lives. We believe that rugby and sports as a whole are a place for anyone regardless of class, race, gender, or sexuality. We will not be making further statements on the personal lives of our players or coaching staff.  _

“That’s not too bad,” Niamh shrugs, “except that it seems like they’re outright denying it. Might as well have said the picture was photo-shopped.”

Conor shrugs, “S’whatever.”

The woman at the sports desk reads the statement, there’s a panel talking about the picture. 

“We don’t even know if it’s real.”

“That picture should have never been released in the first place.”

“I hope for his sake he’s not on twitter.”

Conor looks at his own phone. The notification’s maxed out at 99. 

The first tweet he reads says plainly and simply,  _ @ConorMasters10 Faggot.  _

He scrolls past it anyway  _ @ConorMasters10, I always knew there was a reason you hit like a fucking queer. _

_ @ConorMasters10 First the dyke coach, now this guy? It’s like they’re turning rugby into a fucking pride parade. _

Niamh has to take the phone out of his hand to get him to stop reading. 

“Get some sleep,” He says. 

She nods and they part ways. 

Ned’s there to catch him when he falls through his door. It’s like his legs give out. They just stop and he slides against the wall. 

“Why do they all care so much,” Conor groans. 

Ned slides down to the floor with him and shrugs his shoulder. 

Conor’s holding his phone. He was reading an article on the elevator. A trashy gossip magazine, but there were quotes from someone who said he recognized Conor from a nightclub, and that’s enough to make Conor’s stomach churn. 

“Conor,” Ned brushes his hands along either side of Conor’s face, “Turn off your phone. For tonight at least.”

Conor hands the cell phone over without any protest and Ned powers it off. He leaves it on the floor beside them. 

“Ned you don’t have to do this,” Conor finally says. 

It’s been bugging him all day. That they can’t just take this slow anymore, that now everyone else is invested in their relationship. That Ned is stuck trying to put Conor back together. 

“Stop,” Ned says, “Stop apologizing for things you can’t control.”

“Are  _ you  _ okay?” Conor asks, “It was your picture too.”

“I’m out. Publicly if you want to say that. And it wasn’t my name.”

“Was that really an answer.”

“No,” Ned relents, “It fucking sucks and I hate the world and I would very much like to break someone.”

“Huh,” Conor says, “I was just sitting around feeling sorry for myself.”

Ned pulls him to his feet by his hand. Conor sits on the edge of the bed while Ned sits on the desk chair, legs hanging over the arm. 

“You’re allowed to be sorry for yourself.”

:”Why are you angry?” Conor asks, “You always hated the fact that they all thought I was straight.”

“Well yeah. Because I wanted you to be happy. It had nothing to do with me,”” he pauses, “I guess maybe I wanted things to be different. I would have never asked you come out for me though. You should have always been able to decide when. Every time. I’d never ask you to.”

“I would have.”

“What?”

“If you asked me to, I would have.”

“I didn’t- I didn’t know that. I always thought you…”

“Maybe it would have been easier if I just got it out of the way at the beginning. If I came out in uni, that way it wouldn’t have mattered now. I guess I just needed someone to give me a little nudge. Maybe I should have told you that.” 

“Are you going to say anything?”

“Statement’s out,” Conor shrugs. 

“But are  _ you  _ going to say anything?”

“I don’t know what there is to say. I don’t want to drag you into this. I don’t need it to be a thing. I never wanted the extra pressure. Because I knew there always would be. Suddenly I’m not just a rugby player, I’m a role model. Well I guess I’m not a player anymore.”

Ned frowns. 

But Conor just keeps talking, he says everything he’s been thinking since he was 15, since he realized he was gay, since he realized he was good enough to be a professional athlete, since he realized that meant something different. 

“And I guess there’s nothing wrong with being a role model. But it’s an extra step. It’s a fucking obligation that no one else has to go through, and Liv gets it a little, but not all the way. You know? It’s different for her and it sucks in different ways for her I guess. Sometimes I wish no one was paying attention to me and she has to fight for it. How the fuck is that fair? And what? I’m a fucking role model? What happens when they find out I’m actually a mess? Why am I different?”

Conor takes in a deep breath and looks down at his hands, he feels empty now, not lighter, just empty. Ned crawls into the bed with him and wraps his arms around Conor’s torso, burying his head in Conor’s lap. 

“You used to say it, remember? That I could be an example and a role model. That I could change things.”

“Yeah and we fought about it. I was wrong,” Ned says. His voice is muffled by Conor’s pants. He’s shaking a little, “I’m sorry if I made it worse for you.”

“It’s still not your fault that the world’s not fair.”

“You don’t owe anyone anything. Except yourself. You it to yourself to stop punishing yourself,” Ned sits up, still hugging Conor. 

“Everyone says that.”

“Maybe some of them have a point.”

“Can we just pretend it didn’t happen. For today,” Conor looks over at the clock on the bedside table. It’s nearly sunrise. 

“Yeah,” Ned says, “Yes, please.”

“Can I stay?” Conor asks. He notices how young his voice sounds, how needy he feels with Ned holding on to him. 

Ned nods. 

He wakes up in a warm bed to the smell of coffee and the sound of guitar strings. He doesn’t care what time it is. He doesn’t care where anyone needs him to be. All he cares about is Ned, at the end of the bed, lightly strumming, sun peeking in through the window, shining on the freckles on his back. There’s a practice today, no one’s going to blame him when he doesn’t show up. Conor’s phone is off, Ned’s is nowhere to be seen. Neither one of them reaches for it. 

“Hi,” Conor says. 

“Hi,” Ned smiles at him. 

Conor pulls the covers off and crawls down to the foot of the bed and kisses Ned on the back. Ned shrugs him off with a smile on his face. 

They sit in bed. Neither one of them puts on a shirt, neither one of them leaves the room. They order grilled cheese sandwiches for lunch and Conor can’t keep his hands off of Ned. 

“Y’know I still think about that room where we used to practice. I should have told you how I felt right there.”

“Would’ve saved some time,” Ned says, “Thought I made my part pretty obvious.  _ All I can hear is your voice and it makes me want to follow you. _ ”

“So what you’re saying is you were always cheesy and I was always stupid.”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

And Ned starts humming. 

And Conor starts to sing, softly, out of tune, but Ned strums out the melody. 

“You always took the low part,” Ned grumbles.

Conor smiles, kisses Ned again. 

_ “Think for a minute, stop for a minute” _

_ “Think for a minute, stop for a minute” _

“You think Sherry was trying to get my ass kicked?” Conor says. 

Ned laughs, “I think he was trying to make us fall in love.”

“He might have succeeded.”

The day flows lazily by, the sun starts to dip below the horizon and they sit on the balcony. Ned lays on the ground, looking out over the city. Conor sits at his feet. The city’s loud. Conor stands up and leans over the balcony. He takes a deep breath in. 

“What are you doing?” Ned says, a laugh in his throat. 

Conor looks up, looks down, sees the people hurrying past the hotel, on their phones, on bikes in cars. 

And then Conor yells. 

“I  **FUCKING LOVE NED ROCHE!”**

Ned laughs, he stands up. The sound of the city swallows Conor’s voice. 

“ **NED ROCHE LOVES YOU BACK!”**

And then he kisses him. And it feels like being home again. 

And then Ned’s door flies open and it’s Olivia and Aryn and before Conor has time to question why they’re together, Liv’s opening the balcony door, panic on her face. 

“Have you seen Niamh?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you get a young lesbian who provides wisdom!! and you get a young lesbian who provides wisdom!! EVERYBODY GETS A YOUNG LESBIAN WHO PROVIDES WISDOM
> 
> also the rugby boys? will be making an appearance


	8. It's perfect as it stands

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Conor Masters needed a good day

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> boy needs a rest, the real world resumes tomorrow

“What? Why would we have seen Niamh?” Ned asks, gently putting his hand on Liv’s back and guiding her back into the room. “She didn’t come to practice. She shares a room with Abie, Abie said she hasn’t seen her since last night,” Liv’s voice rides the line between fury and panic. 

“Do you know where she hangs out?” Ned asks, his arm is on Liv’s shoulder, she shrugs him off 

“We’re in a different fucking country, Ned. I have no fucking idea where to find her”

“Did you call her?” Ned asks. 

“Of course I fucking called her.”

“Liv,” Conor says, “Yelling at him isn’t going to solve anything.”

She rolls her eyes, “Sorry I’m stressed out that our best back is M.I.A. the day before a bronze medal game.”

“We’ll find her.”

Conor means that he’ll find her, of course. Feels like somehow, this is his fault. 

“You’re phone’s ringing,” Aryn points out. 

“Fuck. Well. Secret’s out I guess. Victor flew out for the game. With Wally and Weasel.”

Any Other time that would have been the best news Conor could have received but now, now that’s the last thing he can think about. 

Ned’s hand rests on the small of Conor’s back. His voice is gentle. 

“You meet them at the airport. Niamh has to be around. We’ll find her.”

Liv takes a deep breath, clenches her fist around her phone and picks up. 

Aryn looks at Ned, nods, gives him a look that they both seem to be in on and she walks out after Liv. Conor sinks down into the bed, hands on his thighs, fists clenched. Ned sits down next to him. The dip in the bed is warm. 

“What did you talk about the other night?”

“It’s so hard,” Conor says, ‘I got so caught up being worried about me, I didn’t bother checking how my team was doing. She’s a kid.”

“She’s gay?”

Conor nods, “And angry. Scared. Thought it’d be better by now. Not even for me.”

“It happens slow.”

“I should see if she tried to call me.”

He stands up, opens Ned’s drawer and finds his phone. He powers it on. It buzzes for five minutes straight. 

Ned takes it out of his hands as the text messages pile on top of the e-mailed requests for interview pile up on top of the tweets from the kind of people who would go drinking with his dad. Conor watches as Ned clears them, dismissing them, swiping them to the side. He figures out how to turn off Conor's twitter mentions and he does it all with a steely-eyed look of determination on his face. Conor can only imagine the things people are saying about him, about Liv. The things they’ll say about Niamh when it finally becomes too much for her to bear. Ned shakes his head, swallows hard. He throws the phone behind him on the bed and stands up. He wobbles slightly as he walks the straight line to the bathroom. Conor follows as soon as he hears retching. Ned’s doubled over on the floor, bright red. Conor can tell the tears streaming down his face are a mix of emotions and a physiological reaction to his vomit. 

He knees beside him, puts his hand gently on the back of his neck, rubs circles with his thumb. Ned’s breathing slows as he clutches the toilet seat. 

“I’m sorry,” Conor whispers into his hair. 

Ned shakes his head, “I want to fucking kill someone.”

Conor hears the sound of his ring tone from the other room. Ned shakes his head. 

“Don’t.”

“If it’s her, we need to know.”

Conor leaves Ned. The phone is still unlocked and Conor sees why Ned was spilling his guts. The words were bad, but the pictures were worse. People describing exactly what they intended to do to Conor in explicit detail. It’s strange, that’s not what makes Conor sick to his stomach. It’s the support. The feeling of obligation that weighs him down as he answers Niamh’s phone call. 

“Fuck, I’m sorry,” is the first thing she says. 

“It’s fine. It’s fine,” Conor insits, “Liv just worries is all.”

“Not about that...Conor, I know who took the pictures,” Her voice shakes, small and weak. 

“What?” Conor says, he can’t help the red that tinges the edges of his vision. 

“I didn’t know for sure… but then I found out.. And oh fuck I’m so sorry I just couldn’t face you or Liv at practice… I trusted her.”

“Niamh. Stop apologizing and call Liv. Let her know you’re okay. Then show up for dinner. We’ll talk then. Just get back to the village. Find Abie if you need someone to talk to, okay? It’s not your fault. You didn’t know they were going to do that with the pictures” He knows, he  _ knows  _ he’s not the person to deal with this, knows Abie could talk a 17 year old off a ledge in her sleep, and Ned’s still on the bathroom floor, hands shaking, seething. Selfish as it might sound, Conor wants to be with him instead. 

He hangs up, throws the phone on the bed. Ned stands behind him, he’s washed his hands and pushed his hair up and out of his face, it’s slicked back with sweat and his are bloodshot.

“She knows who did it?” Ned says

“Yeah.”

“Are you going to ask her who it was?” An edge creeps into his voice.

“What’s the point?”

“So I know who to fucking strangle.”

“Yeah because murder is goi ng to make this whole situation better.”

“I don’t know how you’re not angry.”

“Tired of being angry,” Conor answers simply, “I just want to do my fucking job.” 

He grabs Ned by the waist, pulls him forward and kisses him.

“Tomorrow’s a big day. We’ll focus on that,” Ned says, “If that’s what you want.”

“I think there’s something else I want to focus on right now,” Conor kisses along the side of Ned’s neck. 

“Is now really the right time?”

“Niamh’s fine, we’ve got at least a couple hours until Dom and Liv get back with the boys, why not?” Conor asks. 

That’s all it takes for Ned to press his body flush with Conor’s. Conor’s hands float around the hem of Ned’s blue t-shirt. The material is softer than the heavy shirts that Conor wears. He leans into Ned, his breath heavy and hot, he whispers in Ned’s ear. 

“Wanna feel you,” he says. It’s unabashedly needier than Conor’s ever been. 

Ned puts his hands on Conor’s and guides them to his waist. Conor rucks up Ned’s shirt and pulls it over his head. Ned falls back into his bed. The sheets are a mess, Conor wonders if Ned still doesn’t make his bed. He doesn’t ask. Not when his hands are on Ned’s waist, tracing the dip in his hip bone. 

It’s not lost on him that it’s the middle of the day. That the sun is shining and he can hear the bustle of the city below him. He’s in no hurry, no worry of being caught, in a club bathroom or by a clueless wife that one time that he still feels really bad about. He doesn’t need to be distracted by booming speakers. There are birds somewhere. 

Ned is all angles. Conor can trace his ribs, the vertebrae at the top of his back stick out when he looks down. Conor’s mother always insisted that he couldn’t possibly be eating enough, but no matter how many helpings of dinner he had, his metabolism raced onward. He’s filled out a little since then. His shoulders are broader and his waist isn’t as defined. But Conor can still run his thumb over Ned’s collar bones, gently graze his adam’s apple with his tongue. He feels Ned moan softly at the gentle press of his tongue. 

Conor presses himself up to kiss Ned, cupping his hand around his face. Dotting kisses along his jawline, gently but decisively moving his thumb over Ned’s cheekbones. Ned parts his lips and lets a little gasp slip out as Conor slides his tongue between Ned’s teeth. 

There’s nothing urgent about it, nothing filthy, nothing quick. Conor’s always felt soft in the places where Ned’s sharp. Where Ned’s cheekbones jut out, Conor’s curve in on themselves. Where Ned’s jawline is distinct, Conor’s is blunt. He’s round, and he’s square. He’s broad shoulders and a thick neck and muscles that are meant for  _ doing  _ things, not looking nice. That means his six pack is covered by a layer of fat, that when he flexes his biceps, they’re not rock hard, but rather, there to get the job done. 

Everyone always acted like Conor was the more attractive one when they were together the first time, but to Conor, it’s Ned who looks like a goddamn model. Like one of those grunge rock singers with leather jackets that hang off thin shoulders. Conor wants to memorize every inch of Ned. Can’t imagine that there’s anyone who wouldn’t if they were in the same position. 

It surprises him when Ned’s so delicate with his hands, the way they wander up and down his stomach, settle on his hips. Just above his thighs and below his abs, it’s a part of him that always spills out of his jeans, jiggles just above his running shorts. The muscle definition is lost to retirement. 

But Ned, Ned runs his hands over every inch of his chest. Feels lucky to just be there. That Conor feels so solid, lying beside him. One thing he learned the first few times he got to touch Conor, was how soft muscle is. He was so used to fists, to tension. But Conor relaxes underneath of him and Ned can hold him in his arms. They’re both so different now, but Ned still feels like a lanky seventeen year old. This wrists and chicken legs. But Conor makes him feel like every inch of him is worth touching, even the sharp edges. Even the places no one else would think to look. He traces the callous on Ned’s thumb that won’t go away because Ned never learned how to hold a pen quite the right way. Conor loves whispering things in Ned’s ear, loves kissing the spot just below them, and fuck if it doesn’t feel nice for his massive ears to finally get some positive attention. 

All he wants is to make Conor feel the same way he does. So he puts his hands on Conor’s chest, kisses the top of his shoulder, down his stomach. Kisses that spot just above Conor’s belt with reverence. Sucks a mark into his flesh before he pulls Conor’s pants off. He can’t go a month without having to replace his jeans because his thighs bust through the seams eventually. He can see this pair is close to needing replacing. That’s why Conor practically existed in sweatpants throughout all of uni. Ned can’t say he had any room to complain about seeing his boyfriend in grey sweatpants and a t-shirt every day. 

“Ned,” Conor sighs. 

Ned just laughs, looks up at Conor. He pulls the waistband of Conor’s boxers and snaps them against Conor’s waist. Conor yelps but laughs, brings Ned back up for a kiss. Conor can’t remember the last time he laughed having sex with someone. 

Ned laughs when he rips open the condom, laughs at the way Conor begs for more than just his lube coated fingers with a smirk on his face. They laugh at the noises they make together. Grunting, panting, moaning, groaning, one particularly nasally wheeze. They throw every semblance of composure out the window and over the balcony. Conor comes with a cry, feels Ned follow soon after he thanks god for the do not disturb sign that hasn’t really left their door. They’re both breathing heavy, grinning ear to ear. Ned turns over on his side and Conor envelopes him in his arms. 

Sex is sex, so it’s hard for sex to be bad but sex with Ned is an entirely different beast. It’s so much warmer, so much kinder. No one’s hitting him with an open fist or scowling at him as he buttons his pants back up. It’s nice and they talk about everything they’re about to do. Conor forgot that was part of it for a long time, he wouldn’t go back to anything else. He’ll hold on for as long as he can. 

They shower together, in a completely and utterly non-sexual way. Just sharing water, sharing space, sharing a bar of soap. They don’t mean to, but they fall asleep with towels wrapped around their waists, the bed sheet pulled up over top of them. Being so makes them both sleepy. They curl up into one another, Ned’s head resting under Conor’s chin, Conor’s legs tangling into Ned’s. 

Conor wonders if he’s allowed to say it. Ned has, Ned does with surprising regularity. But for Conor it’s different, he wonders if he’s earned the right to have those three words in his mouth again. Then he smells Ned’s hair, hotel soap and the fruity dry shampoo he uses. 

“Hey,” Conor whispers. 

Ned mumbles something that’s not quite words but sounds something like “what?”

“I love you.”

“I love you too,” Ned’s voice is muffled by Conor’s chest, he answers immediately, “now go to sleep.”

So Conor sleeps, wrapped up in about eight different kinds of warmth. He holds on to the fact that Ned loves him back, and he loves him back with such absolute immediacy as he falls into a dreamless sleep, the kind that only really comes in the afternoon. 

He hears the door click open, thinks that they forgot to take off the do not disturb sign and starts to panic. Yes, everyone saw that picture, but that doesn’t mean he wants a housekeeper finding him naked in bed with his boyfriend. 

The absolute last person he’s expecting to see at the foot of his bed is Victor Hines

“Holy shit!” Conor scrambles to pull the sheet up over his chest. 

Ned stirs slightly. His head’s pressed to the pillow face first so Victor might not be able to see exactly who it is. 

“Liv had your key,” Victor shrugs, he looks back to his sister, “I thought you said this was Ned’s…” A realization dawns on him, “Oh  _ fuck!,”  _ he looks almost giddy to see Ned sitting up and pushing his hair out of his face. 

“Why the fuck are you in my room,” he mumbles. 

“In my defence I didn’t know Conor would still be here,” Liv says.

“Well clearly I stuck around.”

“Clearly,” she snorts. 

“Fuck off,” Conor says and he’s a little bit serious about it. Dom had walked in with Victor but done a complete 180 and now stands outside the door, politely. 

“The lads are in the lobby…”

“Can I put some fucking pants on, Vic?” Conor says. 

Victor blushes and nods, “yeah, yeah oh yeah for sure. Fuck, sorry, mate.”

“Just… teach your family to knock,” Ned mumbles. 

He laughs as Victor and Dom and Liv wait outside the door.

“Gotta love the Hines household open door policy,” Ned chirps. 

Conor laughs, kisses the top of Ned’s head and pulls his jeans back on. He’s glad he’s forgotten to take some of his clothes off of Ned’s floor because he doesn’t think he could handle the embarrassment of shuffling into his own room to find a shirt. Ned wears a pair of maroon pants and a white dress shirt with a grey floral pattern on it. 

Ned grabs Conor by the collar of his boring blue jumper and kisses him just before the door. It swings open. 

“Sorry. I was just- are y’ready? D’you need a minute?” Victor says. 

Conor punches him in the arm, “Let’s go you fucking asshat.”

Victor smiles at him, a childish grin on his face. He wears glasses now, makes him look more like a teacher than he is. You can’t really call a physical education teacher a real teacher, can you? Conor doesn’t think so. Victor’s a damn good rugby coach though. Kind, thoughtful. Good at teaching the rules to little kids. 

“How’s Heather,” Conor says after finally remembering his girlfriend’s name. 

“We’re engaged,” Victor says. 

“Wow,” and Conor feels even more like he’s falling behind. He’s trying to stop making everything about him in his mind but when he imagines Victor slipping a ring on someone’s hand, he can’t help but think that Ned’s is empty. 

He feels the same way when he sees Wally holding his son in the lobby, when he jokes about “giving the wife a vacation for a couple days.” A pang of longing, of wanting, of jealousy when Weasel shows him the picture of the sheepdog that he just adopted with his boyfriend, talks about finally getting to meet his parents and how awkward that was. 

Ned holds Wally’s son, bounces him on his knee in the restaurant the old friends decide to get lunch at. He babbles, Ned teaches him how to say his name, Wally insists he put an “uncle” before “ned”

“So when do I get a nephew, Vic?” Liv turns to Victor, “Before or after the wedding.”

Victor almost chokes on his iced tea, “We’re uh... Not really planning anything,”

Dom punches Liv in the shoulder, “Don’t be rude.” It’s a joke. 

Ned asks about Keith and Tom, it turns out he hasn’t seen them in ages either. They went back to their hometown after woodhill. They own a dairy together, married a pair of sisters, which couldn’t be more in character if they tried. 

Conor just feels so  _ behind _ . He knows logically that 28 is young, that he has plenty of time. But it feels like his friends are all running, and he has cement in his shoes. So sue him if he imagines adopting a dog with Ned, proposing or even own a fucking dairy. 

“We really have to get together more, lads,” Victor says, still a rugby captain through and through. 

“Drinks at mine when we get home?” Weasel proposes, “Kyle says I always talk about you guys but he’s never met you.”

“I wanna meet your dog, mate,” Liv jokes. 

If Conor looks at Ned holding Wally’s kid for too long, it starts to hurt worse. Deeper down in his chest. Carson’s the kid’s name, and he’s sweet and cute and Ned talks to him with a lilt to his voice and it just  _ hurts _ . And it’s his fault. 

He doesn’t have time to feel sorry for himself because Weasel points his attention to the TV over the bar. It’s a preview for the bronze medal match. Weasel elbows him when some stock footage of him coaching comes up on the screen. Suddenly he has something else to be nervous about, a different fear of failure confronts him. Being surrounded by friends helps though, he thinks maybe he should try to do that more often. 

The lads check in after lunch, sufficiently full of nachos. Then they go to the pool, which was Carson’s idea but everyone else is on board with it. Aryn shows up some time before they head upstairs, Liv invites her to tag along, she shrugs. Conor didn’t bring a pair of swimming trunks so he has to use the ones the hotel has underneath the bathrobes. They are tight around his thighs but just about everything is. At least they’re not flashy, a light blue with the hotel’s logo on them. Ned jumps in immediately, does a cannon ball to impress Carson and looks after him so Wally can call his wife. Olivia puts Aryn on her shoulders and Dom puts Victor on his and they take turns shoving at one another. Dom keeps snapping the strap of Liv’s sports bra which she loudly screams is cheating.

Weasel sits at the edge of the pool with Conor. 

“You look brooding,” Weasel says. 

“I’m not.”

“Liar,” Weasel rolls his eyes. 

“Mate, this is the best week of my life. You’re all here, I’m at the fucking Olympics, Ned’s still not realized taking me back is the worst idea he’s ever had.”

“When has good shit happening ever stopped you from being depressed as fuck though?”

Conor rolls his eyes. 

“And Ned was always gonna take you back.”

“You don’t know that,” Conor says. 

“I do actually. He told me. Said no matter how long it took he’d go back to you if you asked. Pair of fucking drama queens if you ask me.”

Weasel stretches. 

“Glad you got over your life long fear of commitment,” Conor says, in reference to the dog. 

“Oh you’re a bitch,” Weasel grins and out-muscles Conor, shoving him into the pool. Conor keeps his grip steady and pulls Weasel in. For a moment it all stops, the buzzing in his head is replaced by laughter. The strong arms of his friends shoving him into the water. Ned and Wally taking turns throwing Carson back and forth at one another while shrieks of glee carried over the noise of everything else. The adults are still buzzed from the drinks they had at lunch for the first little while, but as the sun sets and everyone heads back to their rooms, the alcohol has long since left their systems. It’s love, friendship that has him feeling warm and tipsy.

Conor is pleasantly surprised to find that he has had a good day. He forgets about the things that have to catch up with him tomorrow

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Conor and Ned, both being really really into the way the other one looks while not quite understanding what the other one sees in them? yes pls


	9. i don't wanna know when it's gonna end

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> bronze medal match babey!

There’s a man standing at the end of the rugby field. And he’s wearing Conor’s dad’s face. He’s wearing it because it can’t be his dad, because Conor hasn’t talked to his dad in six years. Not since he left his mom. The man wearing his dad’s face leers at him from behind the try line. Conor looks down at his clipboard and it’s blank, the players in front of him are just a shifting mass of people, faceless and chattering. And then Conor looks up and he’s standing in the middle of the field and he can’t feel any of it. None of the parts he loves, not the softness of the mud or the coolness of the air. It’s just hollow. And the man who’s wearing his father’s face sneers, and then he’s staring at Conor, looking down at him and sneering and it can’t possibly be his dad because he hasn’t had to look up at his dad since he was 14. He doesn’t like this, being on the field without a team, without friends, without help. Conor feels something going through his body, like a light electric shock and it gets stronger as his dad comes closer. Conor looks over at the scoreboard, every time he looks back his team is losing by more. His father’s sneer turns into a grin that turns into a snarl, it becomes more and more grotesque, his father reaches out for him and then Conor’s falling, everything just out of reach. 

Conor wakes with a start, sweat pouring down his face. And he tried not to cry out because Ned is sleeping beside him but he must have, just before he woke. He’s sitting completely upright, trying to catch a breath. Ned’s stirring behind him, props himself up on his own elbows and resting his head on Conor’s shoulder, on instinct, Conor tears himself away. Ned retreats, instead he offers only his hand and Conor grabs it like the lifeline it is. He holds Ned’s hand to his chest and Ned squeezes it tight. Conor’s trying not to cry because as much as his therapist tells him it’s a natural process, Conor still feels small when he does it. 

Ned crawls out from under the covers and sits up next to him. 

“Do you want me to turn on a light?” Ned asks. 

Conor nods, words still haven’t returned to him. The lamp next to the bed comes on, Ned must have done it, though Conor didn’t see him do it. Now he can see what’s right in front of him. The obscenely large hotel TV, an armchair. A pile of laundry. And Ned, he can see Ned sitting right next to him. 

“Sorry,” Conor finally mutters, still out of breath, still shaking. 

“It’s okay,” Ned says, his voice is gentle. 

Conor shakes his head. 

“It is, baby, it is,” Ned puts his hand on Conor’s shoulder, when Conor doesn’t pull away, he wraps his arms around Conor’s torso. They were never ones to use pet names, not unless they were completely alone, in the dark. It almost startles him to hear it again. 

“I’m- you shouldn’t have to take care of me.”

Ned sighs, “You’re not the first person to have a nightmare.”

Conor knows. But he still can’t make himself believe that he deserves the kindness that he extended to Ned when they were together. Ned’s dreams about his mom never stopped. He never stopped muttering in his sleep, and tossing and turning and Conor never stopped being there to hold him in the earliest hours of the morning. Sometimes the dreams weren’t even about his mom, sometimes it was just generic anxiety induced night terrors. Conor held him through those too. Conor never dreamed. Not in any concrete way. Sleep, was more often than not, one of the few places he could go to escape his brain. Now not even that feels safe. 

“Almost 30 and I still have fucking daddy issues,” Conor shakes his head, snorts out a laugh. 

Ned laughs along with him, “Don’t we fuckin’ all?”

Conor smiles, nods. He feels his heart rate returning to a reasonable level. 

“I don’t want to lose tomorrow,” Conor says. 

“I know,” Ned answers, “They’re a good team. You have a chance.”

“I hope so.”

“Even if you don’t…”

“I know it’ll be fine. I know it will but I won’t be able to stop thinking about what I could have done different.”

“Conor, I know you. I know you’ve never half assed anything that mattered to you. I know you’ve given nothing short of your all to this team.”

Ned wraps himself around Conor, pulls him back down to the pillow and Conor nuzzles into his chest. The lamp clicks off and Ned holds him. It’s like being enclosed in something warm, Conor lets himself be held as he falls back asleep. This time it’s dark, because Ned’s there, just at the periphery, still holding him, still wrapped up in something solid. 

He wakes up to the smell of pancakes. Ned’s sitting at the end of the bed with a takeout bag. 

“You were still knocked out when I woke up, I didn’t want to wake you,” he says. 

Conor looks over at the alarm, 8 a.m. Liv will be having team breakfast right about now, Conor can’t say he misses having to face his team first thing in the morning. 

“I got you pancakes but if you don’t want them there’s a smoothie.”

“I’m never gonna say no to pancakes. Not from you”

“Whatever happened to your strict diet on game days?”

“I’m not playing. It’s not the -end- of the world if I break a routine or two.”

“We love growth,” Ned places a quick peck on the bridge of Conor’s nose before handing him a container with pancakes and a packet of syrup inside. 

“You made me pancakes all the time.”

Ned nods, “I thought it’d be- y’know, a nice gesture,” Ned shrugs. 

“Thank you,” Conor says, “Really.”

Ned cuts into his own pancakes, chocolate chip, Conor’s are mixed berry.

“It’s not the same as your recipe.”

“I’d cook if we had a stove here.”

Conor looks down at his hands, “When we get home will you?” He asks, “Cook for me. Will you come over and cook again?”

Of course that’s not the thing he misses, not the most. But waking up to the sound of Ned in the tiny kitchen that Conor and his roommates never used? It was pure domestic bliss. The smell of bacon and eggs on game days, pancakes on anniversaries and birthdays. It was the first time he can remember feeling like a real adult, he’d just paid the utilities bill and he was leaning against the kitchen counter reading an e-mail from his coach, Ned was playing music off of his phone making an omelette, humming along gently. His roommates were around, some of them in class, some of them in their own rooms, but he and Ned were alone in the common area that morning. It was the first time he felt like his own person, doing exactly what he wanted, taking care of himself, existing with the person he wanted to exist with forever. 

“Yeah,” Ned says, “I want to get a good look at your kitchen. Someone’s gotta use it.”

“Ah, I cook sometimes.”

“Sure ya do.”

Conor wants to spend a lifetime catching up with Ned, thinking about how it used to be, how it’s going to be. But life happens, life always has to happen, life crashes into you pretty fast when you open twitter and your face is the first thing you see. It’s amazing how many articles people can write about you when you haven’t left your bed in a day and a half. 

“I’m worried about Niamh,” Conor says without prompting.

“Have you heard from her?”

Conor shakes his head, “Only Abie to say she was in their room at curfew.”

“I’m glad she’s okay.”

“I just keep seeing all these fucking articles and it’s always about me, and then it’s about Liv, and just… I dunno what if they’re looking. What if people start talking about her. She’s 17.”

“She’s got a good support system.”

“Yeah,” Conor sighs. 

He knows it’s different, because he’s a man, because people care more about his name, his sport. Still. 

“And I don’t care that she knows who took the picture and I don’t even care that she lied about it… I just want to know if she’s okay, if she trusted someone she shouldn’t have but I don’t think she wants my help.”

“You don’t know that.”

Conor shrugs.

The truth of it is that Ned makes him a lot better at being a person. Whenever Conor gets something into his head, an idea, a belief that something won’t work, it was always Ned who convinced him to think hard about why that was. The answer was almost always that Conor didn’t trust himself, didn’t like himself enough to think he deserved the benefit of anyone’s doubt. 

So Conor texts Niamh. He asks her if she wants to go to the gym, because he knows that’s what he’d want to do if he was feeling badly about something. She answers, says she’ll meet him there. The gym in the hotel is fine, but the one in the athlete’s village is where they decide to meet. 

Niamh’s wearing the hoodie from her high school rugby team, it’s maroon with a logo on the chest. She lifts weights while Conor spots her. She doesn’t lift her max, nowhere near it since the game is tonight. They don’t say anything at first, not until they’re both drenched in sweat standing by the water fountain filling their water bottles. 

Someone walks up to Conor, he’s young, Australian, Conor thinks he’s a rower. He shakes his hand, thanks him for “Coming Out on Such a Big Platform,” and then walks away. Conor smiles, practices good PR and watches him leave. All the while Niamh is trying to make herself smaller and smaller. 

When he’s gone to the showers, Conor turns to Niamh. He looks at her solemnly. 

“That’s not your fault,” he says. 

Niamh shakes her head, “Kind of is though.”

“You keep saying that. Explain.”

Niamh sighs, looks around,checking over her shoulder in a way that Conor is all too familiar with. 

“I was with a girl… I invited her into the restricted area. I uh… met her on a dating app. It was stupid, fucking bullshit but she must have taken the picture and then when I told her I didn’t want to… y’know- keep seeing her she got pissed. Told me she’d post it. I swear I tried to convince her not to. But we had to play the second half and by the time I got back to the locker room it was already out.”

Conor’s first reaction is not anger, it’s fear, concern, he puts his hand on Niamh’s shoulder. 

“Does she have anything on you?”

Niamh shakes her head “I didn’t put any pictures of my face on the profile.:”

Conor nods his head, “Then we’re going to be okay.”

Niamh hugs him, then just as quickly steps back. 

“I just. I’m really sorry you didn’t get to decide.”

Conor shakes his head, “I uh. Probably never would have ever come out on my own if it hadn’t happened.”

“It wasn’t right. You shouldn’t have had to. It wasn’t their business. I mean your friends and family… those are the only people you owe shit to, and even then, you don’t really.”

“I’m not glad it happened or anything. I’m not afraid anymore though,” Conor says it before he really thinks about it, “The thing that I thought was the worst thing that could possibly happen to me, happened, and it was fine.”

Niamh nods, “Yeah.”

“I uh. A lot of people are gonna tell you that it gets better. But believe me when I say it’s gonna suck for as long as you let people make you afraid. I just wish I’d said something sooner. So I could stop being afraid.”

“What about my mum?”

Conor shrugs, “I don’t know her. I’ll tell you that I don’t talk to my dad anymore and it’s not like there’s a gaping hole there or anything.”

Niamh nods, “Is Ned you…”

“Ned’s my boyfriend. For now,” Conor adds, “Until he realizes he can do better.”

Niamh laughs.

“We’re gonna win tonight,” Niamh says, “And then it won’t matter, right?”

“It’ll help,” is all Conor says, “You gotta take a nap or something before warmup. You’re too keyed up.”

Niamh nods. 

Their game is before the gold medal match. It’s 2 in the afternoon when everyone arrives. Conor looks up into the stands and sees Ned sitting next to Aryn, chatting but both obviously dealing with their own nerves. Conor waves to Ned and Ned waves back at him. There are rugby fans filing in. The Canadian cohort is larger, draped in flags with signs but the Irish are louder, they bring noisemakers and powerful lungs. He can see Wally with a babbling toddler on his shoulders. His wife’s flown over for the game, he watches her press a kiss to Wally’s lips. Conor feels jealous at first, then he looks over at Ned and it turns to hope. Victor’s girl came over on the same flight, Conor can see the ring on her finger as she riotously waves her flag in the faces of a group of Canadians. Then he sees Keith and Tom, two women sit behind them watching ass their husbands fight over which way the Irish flag is supposed to face. It’s Weasel that Conor notices last, maybe because he’s sitting behind everyone else but also maybe because Conor’s never seen Weasel smile like that, arm around the back of his boyfriend’s seat, casual, comfortable. He looks down at the logo on the lapel of his windbreaker, the black umbrella, rainbow droplets falling from it. He knows it wasn’t Ned who stitched it on there, but it’s nice to imagine Ned’s hands on something that he’s wearing. He can see it on the players shorts as they jog up and down the try line. 

The men’s team is somewhere behind them, nothing to do on their day off. He can see Dom. Old friends , he wonders if they’ve seen the picture, wonders why the hell he still cares. 

Liv is leading the warmup, very clearly in charge but also very clearly fighting through nerves. It all comes down to right now and he can feel the cameras on him and he can feel people caring about how he moves, how he holds himself and he does his best not to care as he looks down at his clipboard then back up at his team. Not a coach, he has to tell himself, that’s Liv’s job. He’s reading her handwriting, a handful of sticky notes taped to a lineup sheet. Really, Conor just has to sit there and clap. And he does a spectacular job, if you ask anyone. 

For the first time, he looks over at the Canadian bench. Their coach is a tall woman, hair cropped short, built like a rugby player, she stands behind their bench with her hands on her hips, she shouts the entire time. 

He watches the first half, as the Canadians force them back, as they lay harder hits. He also runs along the sidelines, clapping his hands, cheering as Abie runs for their first try, he whoops as Niamh kicks for three points. It’s 21-10 at the half. Conor stands back as Liv stands in front of the team, she’s clearly exhausted, just shrugs her shoulder. 

“It’s doable.”

There are seven minutes in each half. That’s all that stands between the team and a medal or going home empty handed. 

His heart is in his throat. They take their positions and they’re just better this time. They’re better. It’s like the Canadians thought they were going to have it easy. They relaxed, and that’s all they needed. 

It comes down to a kick. 21-20 after Abie carried the ball in for a try. There are 12 seconds left on the clock. And it’s Niamh who takes it, and Conor holds his breath. And Niamh lines up, Conor sees her swallow hard. She’s 17. Conor can’t stop thinking about how she’s 17 and what’s going to happen if she misses If she’ll beat herself up probably for the rest of her life because Conor knows that’s what he’d do, that’s what she’ll do.. 

Her foot connects with the ball immediately and Conor knows it’s going in he doesn’t cheer until it soars through the uprights. Niamh collapses onto the field. Hits the ground and cheers. It’s the longest 12 seconds Conor’s ever sat through in his life, but when it’s over he feels more than he’s felt in a long time. He screams, a whoop, he punches the air. The Canadians are at one end of the field, lying on the ground in exhaustion, but Conor’s team is screaming, jumping into each other. Niamh’s on her knees, looking up at the sky, a grin on her face. There are tears. Only a few seconds before Conor feels the embrace of a crowd. The Irish fans stampede onto the field. Not just their friends,  _ everyone,  _ they blow past security and they’re singing and hollering. 

He catches Victor who jumps into his side, pounding on his arms in pure joy and he shakes Liv’s hand, slaps her on the shoulder and the crowd floods further onto the field and Ned’s right there, impossible to miss and his arms are open, coming in for the hug that Conor returns with a vigor he wouldn’t have thought himself capable of until that very moment, and Ned’s head is buried in his shoulder and Conor wants to kiss him. 

So Conor does. 

He wraps his arms around Ned and kisses him hard and full on the mouth, holds his face and there are tears welling in his eyes. Ned kisses him again. There are cameras and people and Conor couldn’t care less. It’s not like it’s just him and Ned, it’s not like the books where everything evaporates and he only sees himself and his boyfriend. The people are still there, screaming and shouting and it’s complete and utter chaos and everyone’s going mad and kissing Ned is part of that. Picking him up and spinning him around is part of it. Kissing him on the cheek while they throw Niamh onto their shoulders and throw her into the air. It’s amazing and it’s every part of him celebrating together. He’s not picking one over the other. He doesn't think he ever will. Not again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i am incredibly curious as to whether anyone who reads this is into rugby, like i watched the movie at first because it was a rugby movie that was also gay,  
> like does me caring about the realism of the rules of rubgy sevens make any difference for literally anyone?  
> also hi if you comment and leave kudos i'd die 4 u


	10. Come inside where it's okay

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Talking about the future

Conor’s spends 20 minutes washing champagne out of his hair. They celebrated like the world was going to end if they weren’t shitfaced by the time they left the locker room. They just kept pulling alcohol out of their bags, lagers, and six packs. Liv shook up a bottle of champagne and sprayed it on him, jumping onto his back as they ran around the locker room. Medals around their necks. Someone was standing in the corner taking pictures of the girls. Conor stays out of the way, lets them have their moment. 

All he wanted was to lay low. To let the girls have their moments, to have everything they deserved, everything he had had four years ago. Then that got derailed, in the worst way it possibly could have, but then it got better… in a way he didn’t think it was going to. 

He kissed Ned and it wasn’t the end of the world. His phone blew up but he wasn’t’ afraid of that anymore. He turned off the notifications and put it in his drawer. 

There’s champagne in his hair. And that means he’s won. That means that there was someone who thought far enough ahead to buy champagne, and someone who thought he’d done a good enough job to get soaked in it. It means that he had a team. 

His hair stops smelling like alcohol so he turns off the hot water and wraps a towel around his waist. Ned’s sitting on the edge of Conor’s bed, playing with the cufflinks of his suit. It’s a deep purple colour, kind of shiny in the right light. He’s wearing a white shirt with a black tie on underneath. Conor remembers the spunky anarchist, the boy with the badly dyed hair. Ned doesn’t believe Conor when he says it, but Conor still sees that boy. The boy who was so angry that the world wasn’t changing grew up to be a man who tried his best to change it. And he did. He is. 

Conor kisses the top of his head. Ned smiles. 

“You look amazing,” Conor says. 

“Thanks,” Ned smiles, “Wish I was going with you.”

“That’s what you get for being good at your job,” Conor smirks.

The dinner Ned is getting read for is going to be nothing in comparison to the victory party Conor’s getting ready for. The girls have been drinking since sundown and they have no intention of stopping any time soon.

“Can’t believe you’re wasting this suit on a business dinner.”

“Oh really, what do you want with me in this suit?” Ned teases. 

“Besides the obvious,” Conor sits down on the bed beside his boyfriend, “Wanna show you off. Finally let everyone know that I’m the luckiest guy ‘round here. That you’re my boyfriend.”

Ned smiles a funny little smile, then quickly buries his head in Conor’s shoulder. 

“Soon,” Ned promises. 

Conor agrees, “Soon.”

Ned thoroughly shames him for wearing one of his five black dress shirts and a pair of jeans to go out.

“You wear the same thing every day,” Ned whines. 

Conor shrugs, “Makes life easy.”

“Sometimes I don’t know why I still want to kiss you,” Ned says, quickly though, quickly enough that Conor feels stupid for thinking Ned might have meant it, he kisses Conor. 

“Then I remember,” Ned says pulling back. 

Conor smiles to himself. It feels big and dumb and goofy and he can’t help it that being around Ned makes him smile this much. 

“I’ll try to duck out early and join the fun,” Ned kisses Conor again. 

It’s longer, but gentle, sweet.  _ “Goodbye but just for now, I’ll see you soon,” _ they say to each other without ever opening their mouths. 

Conor walks alone. There are people all over the streets celebrating. It’s been like that for the past two weeks, there’s always something to be happy about, someone to cheer for. Conor sees a man climbing a lamp post, a few feet away a security guard shakes his head. 

Really, it’s just a street party, people filtering in and out of bars, it doesn’t take him too long to find his team. They’re sitting in the VIP room at a bar and grill. The men’s team’s sitting with them. 

“Oi!” One of them shouts at him, they trained together, but never competed, Conor can’t even remember his name, “It’s the trailblazer himself!” He raises his glass of beer, everyone else joins him. 

Conor puts his hands out and waves off the praise. 

The women are still wearing their medals around their necks. The men lost their match but are still celebrating in Irish fashion. 

“I don’t want it to be a thing,” Conor says, “It’s not.” 

He sits down next to Dom who grabs him by the neck and congratulates him. He hands him a beer. 

“Get caught up, mate.”

Conor laughs, downs the whole thing in two chugs and they order another round. Conor feels the buzz start to hit him, it feels warm now, surrounded by friends. He’s not afraid of what might come out of his mouth because it’s out now. He’s out now. 

Conor’s drunk but he’s happy about it. Conor’s drunk and he’s not worried about what he’s going to do. Conor’s watching his friends, and the team and he loves them all, with the entirety of his heart. When he feels someone’s body pressed up behind his, he realizes quickly that it’s Ned’s.The press of his hip bones is familliar and welcome. He turns around, kisses Ned, right there is public. Ned puts his hands on Conor’s shoulder and pulls him towards the dancefloor.

Conor hasn’t had a dance partner in so long, he leans into it. Doesn’t care who’s watching him hold on to Ned’s waist and sway his hps from side to side. He won, he’s going to celebrate. Liv’s popping bottles with Aryn somewhere, the match almost forgotten in the incessant celebration. 

Conor realizes how hot it is in the nightclub when he feels the sweat pooling in Ned’s hand. Ned looks up at him. 

“Do you want to get out of here?”

Conor nods. 

He has no idea what time it is, where half the team is. They’re all at the point of drunken euphoria that they won’t remember Conor leaving. 

So Conor slips his hand into Ned’s. There are still people in the streets, after the rugby matches, Team USA won both the men’s and women’s football medals.Drunk Americans stumble around the streets, draped in flags. The actual athletes are somewhere more secure, no doubt drunk off their faces in their own right. Nobody recognizes Conor now, nobody recognizes Ned. They run, hand in hand, down the street, laughing, drunk on each other, and vodka, definitely a lot of vodka. 

They run into the hotel, the concierge doesn’t even look up as they take the elevator to the roof, not even stopping to get changed. 

No one’s there, everyone’s in the streets below them. A cacophony of laughter, languages and general wordless cheering drifts up. 

Ned throws himself into a lounger beside the pool. He undoes the top button of his dress shirt and pulls his tie away from his neck and holy shit, if Conor thought he looked good before, seeing Ned disheveled and drunk in the deep purple suit is almost enough to kill him. He has the blazer slung over the back of the chair. Conor sits on the edge of the lounger next to Ned’s, feet planted on the floor, gaze fixed on Ned. Ned blinks slowly, like he’s fighting to keep his eyes open. 

“I think I hate being 28,” Ned mutters. 

“Hmm?” Conor says. 

“Too old to say I still have my whole life ahead of me, but too young for anything I say to matter.”

“What old man pissed you off tonight?”

Ned laughs, “I just felt like such a little boy. Everyone there was so much older than me. They all knew what was going on. I wish I’d been a bum in Paris sometimes.”

Conor smiles at the old joke, grabs Ned’s hand and runs his thumb over his knuckle. 

“You wouldn’t be here if you had,” he whispers. 

A smile rises, slowly, but it’s there.

“I’m glad about that one.”

Conor brings Ned’s hand to his lips. 

“You’ve already done a lot of good, you’re gonna do more.”

“Hate that I have to wear a tie for anyone to take me seriously.”

“It looks good on you,” Conor offers.

Ned blushes (more than he already is thanks to the alcohol and his naturally pale face). 

“You’re pretty,” Conor says, “I miss getting to see you every day.”

Ned nods, looking ahead pensively. 

The more time he spends with Ned, the more apparent it is that this is the man he wants to spend the rest of whatever life he’s going to have with. He’s not worried about saying that anymore. 

“I don’t care what happens next, Ned,” Conor says, “As long as I do it with you. As long as we’re together.”

Ned smiles, “You’re not getting rid of me ever again.”

Ned sits up, “These chairs are small, but I don’t care.” 

He places himself next to Conor, rests his head on his shoulder. Conor’s hand falls into Ned’s hair, he runs his fingers through the strands, soft considering the dye he uses. 

“This isn’t…” Ned starts, “I mean we’re not only doing this because we’re here, right?”

“What?” Conor says. 

“It’ll still be there when we go back. The way we feel? It’s not just because we haven’t seen each other in ages, because we’re here and everything’s insane and nothing feels real.”

“You’re the only part of this that’s felt real to me,” Conor blurts without thinking. On the grand scale of cheesy romantic things he’s said to Ned, this one is honestly pretty mild. He still blushes. 

Ned lifts his head off of Conor’s shoulder to look at him. He pulls Conor’s face down to his and kisses him. 

“I swear you wrote love poems in another life.”

“I used to think about getting married to you,” Conor kisses the side of Ned’s face, “At first I thought it was because we were kids. When you walked into Liv’s office that first time, I started thinking about flower arrangements again.”

Ned’s face scrunches up in the way Conor knows it does when he sees a baby or a cat. Happy. 

“I want red roses and orange tulips,” Ned says without prompting. 

Conor kisses him again. 

“And I want Liv to be your best man and Aryn to be mine and I want to pretend not to notice that they’re hooking up at the rehearsal dinner.”

Conor’s thought about this for so long, that all he wants is whatever Ned wants, but Ned was never particularly good at saying what he wanted, and now, here he is. Telling Conor everything. 

“And Victor’s going to lose his mind planning a bachelor party because that’s what he does. I want lace tablecloths and candles in mason jars and a cake that’s bigger than Wally’s kids and Weasel’s dogs.”

Conor buries his head in Ned’s shoulder, “Me too. I want you,” he says, “And our friends.”

“If I can’t have the tulips and the cake, then I’d marry you in a parking lot with rubber bands for wedding rings.”

Conor ends up laying in the lounger with his arms wrapped around Ned. Ned’s snuggled against his chest. Conor kisses the top of his head. They fall asleep still wearing their party clothes, but they don’t care. 

Conor wakes up to the sound of Ned’s breathing. It’s still dark out.

“Ned,” he whispers. 

Ned stirs, looks up. 

“Let’s go to bed, okay?”

Ned nods. 

He sleepily leans against Conor’s shoulder as they take the elevator down to Ned’s room. Ned throws his suit over the arm of the hotel armchair and crawls into bed. Conor wraps himself around him. 

“M’gonna marry you,” Ned says before drifting off. 

The warmth that envelops Conor is all consuming. Ned’s face is the last thing he sees before he goes to sleep. He’d like to make that a habit.


End file.
